


Drowning Icarus

by GriffinRose



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Car Accidents, Explicit Language, Gen, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Keith likes to swear you can fight me on that, Medical Inaccuracies, Motorcycles, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, college is hard, motorcycle accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-14 17:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14140683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GriffinRose/pseuds/GriffinRose
Summary: Keith is an accident. A bad one. And no one even knows. He's stuck off the road, hurt and barely able to move. All he can think about is the car accident that killed his parents, and how much he doesn't want to die.Well, he gets his wish. He is eventually found and brought to the hospital. But it's a long road to recovery, and its opened a lot of old wounds about his parents.





	1. Melting Wings

Sundays were Shiro’s favorite day. He always had off, which meant he could spend the day however he pleased, typically catching up on homework or cleaning the apartment. Keith usually spent his Sundays at Rolo’s tattoo parlor, learning the ropes and possibly practicing on any willing victim. He’d be home in time for dinner, and that was usually about the time the rest of their friends invited themselves over.

 

How their apartment became the go-to hangout spot, Shiro would never know.

 

This Sunday was a blessed one, because the apartment was already clean and Shiro was already caught up on homework, which meant he could actually binge-watch Netflix all day without guilt. He turned off his phone for good measure, so he had no idea what time it was when Lance came through the door.

 

Shiro blinked up at the intrusion. “Oh, hey.”

 

“Hey, Shiro,” Lance said. He slipped out of his shoes but kept the backpack in place. “Keith in his room?”

 

“He’s not home yet, actually,” Shiro responded, pausing Daredevil mid-punch.

 

Lance froze. “What? We agreed we’d study at 4:30! Where the hell is he?”

 

“Calm down,” Shiro said, reaching for his inactive phone. He probably had a missed text from his little brother explaining the situation. Keith usually got home around 4 on Sundays, but he could have been held up by any number of things. He was only half an hour late, nothing to panic about.

 

Lance angrily fished his own phone out of his pocket. His fingers flashed across the screen, no doubt sending a mass of angry texts. “I can’t believe this. We have our mid-term on Tuesday and that huge essay and he’s _late_?”

 

“Rolo probably asked him to help clean up or something,” Shiro said. His phone finally finished powering on, and he waited another few moments for the incoming messages. There were a bunch from the group chat, and a few emails from some professors, and a few from Lance giving him a heads up he was on his way, since Keith hadn’t been answering him.

 

Nothing from Keith.

 

“I swear if he ditches tonight I’m cutting the damn mullet off in his sleep,” Lance said.

 

“Relax,” Shiro said. “Maybe he stopped at the store to pick up snacks, or he needed gas.”

 

“Then why didn’t he tell either of us that he was late?” Lance grumbled, finally letting his bag drop on the ground and taking a seat on the couch angrily.

 

“Because that requires an amount of foresight you and I both know he doesn’t have,” Shiro said. “Just start studying; he’ll probably walk in any minute.”

 

Lance muttered in Spanish under his breath, reaching for his bag and pulling a novel and a notebook out. The novel had a plethora of different colored sticky-notes sticking out of it, and the notebook had dozens of handouts poking out.

 

“You mind if I finish this episode? There’s only ten minutes left,” Shiro asked, gesturing to the TV.

 

Lance waved it on.

 

They finished the episode, and then Shiro turned it off and turned his attention to his phone. He sent Keith a quick message and then read through the group chat. Apparently Lance had declared the Shirogane apartment off-limits for the evening because he and Keith were going to be studying all night. That explained where everyone else was, Shiro supposed.

 

He tried not to watch the clock while he answered his emails. He also tried not to keep track of how long it had been since he texted Keith. Keith was probably on his motorcycle right now, and there was no way he’d even feel his phone vibrate. And if he was running any errands, he wouldn’t even know to check his phone.

 

“How am I supposed to focus on the great American writers when I’m so pissed right now?” Lance asked.

 

“You could try not being pissed,” Shiro said. “Keith probably forgot and thought he had time to do something.”

 

“We planned this on Friday! How could he forget that fast?” Lance demanded, shooting a glare at Shiro.

 

Shiro held up his hands in surrender. “I’m just trying to think about this rationally.”

 

Lance muttered in Spanish again but turned back to his notebook. Shiro made his escape into the kitchen to figure out dinner. If it was only the three of them, he didn’t want to order take-out. But they’d already had spaghetti twice this week…

 

He pulled open the freezer in hopes that something would jump out at him. There were a few bags of frozen veggies, but what to do with them? What would require the least amount of effort?

 

He grinned. Stir-fry it was. But he’d wait until Keith got in before making it; it wouldn’t take long.

 

“Did you ever read “The Yellow Wallpaper?”” Lance asked.

 

“Uh…no?” Shiro responded, poking his head out from the kitchen.

 

“It’s messed up. How am I supposed to find symbolism and write an entire essay on a lady who goes crazy and just humps a freaking wall for the rest of her life?”

 

Shiro’s face went through a multitude of emotions while he tried to figure out how to respond to that. He settled on, “What are they making you read?”

 

“I wish I knew, my guy, I wish I knew.”

 

“And why would you choose to write an essay on this?”

 

“I didn’t,” Lance moaned, flopping sideways on the couch. “The professor assigned each of us a different story we read and I got stuck with this one.”

 

“Well, what have you got so far?” Shiro leaned against the kitchen doorframe.

 

Lance turned his head to glare at Shiro. “Does this look like the face of a responsible college student who started his essay more than forty-eight hours before it’s due?”

 

Well. Shiro would have to agree it did not.

 

“Keith was going to help me figure out what to write about since he’s practically done his, but apparently the asshole decided I wasn’t worth it.”

 

Shiro rolled his eyes. “I guarantee he just forgot.”

 

“That’s even worse! I’m not even worth the conscious effort of deciding to ignore!”

 

“I can’t tell if you’re being dramatic or if I need to call everyone to come validate you.”

 

Lance sighed. “I’m mostly being dramatic because I’m pissed Keith is late, but I’m always up for a round of Lance Validation.”

 

Shiro glanced at the front door. It really wasn’t like Keith to be so late, not when he had a reason to be home on time. And as much as he did forget that other people cared to know he was okay in situations like this, he was pretty good at giving a heads-up.

 

Shiro pulled out his phone and tapped it against his chin. Was it worth it to call? Keith probably wouldn’t answer.

 

But then, maybe he would. Shiro called him.

 

It went to voicemail, like Shiro had expected. “Hey Keith. Just wondering where you are. Give me a call if you’re going to be much later, bye.”

 

“Of course he doesn’t answer his phone!” Lance moaned. “That would be too easy!”

 

“If I help you start this essay will you calm down?” Shiro asked.

 

Lance sighed again and pushed himself upright. “No, I’ll figure something out. Thanks, though.”

 

“I’ll be in my room if you need me, then,” Shiro said. And that was where Shiro hid for the next hour, getting ahead in his assigned reading and not listening intently for the front door to open.

 

Keith still didn’t show up.

 

Shiro started dinner, worry beginning to gnaw at his insides. An hour late was one thing, but two hours without any word at all was pushing it. There was no way Rolo would have kept him this late, and no errands would have taken Keith this long.

 

At least by the time Shiro dished up two plates of stir-fry, Lance’s anger seemed to have dissipated. He had a rough outline for an essay, and he seemed to have slipped into full academic mode.

 

Shiro called Keith again after dinner, and got the same result.

 

He decided to call Rolo, just in case.

 

Rolo answered after just three rings. “Hey, Big Bro Shiro, what’s up?”

 

“Hey, Rolo. Is there any chance Keith is still at the shop with you?”

 

“No, he left at his usual time. A few minutes early, actually. Said he was helping a friend study and wanted to make sure he wasn’t late.”

 

Well. That was concerning for a number of reasons.

 

“You haven’t heard from him since then?” Shiro asked. It was a good thing the phone was in his human hand; his prosthetic might have crushed it.

 

“Not a peep. You can’t get a hold of him?”

 

“No,” Shiro admitted.

 

Rolo muttered a curse. “I wish I could help but the last I saw of him he was heading out on his bike at 3:30. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

 

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Shiro said. He set the phone down on the table, tapping his fingers on the surface and taking a deep breath. His worry had multiplied ten-fold.

 

Lance stared at him.

 

“Rolo said Keith was on his way to study, so Keith didn’t forget about it,” Shiro admitted.  

 

“So…what happened between him leaving Rolo’s and coming here?” Lance asked. “Did he just randomly decide to go on a cross-country trip or something?”

 

Shiro hoped that was all it was. His gut was telling him it was much worse than that. He glanced outside. It was already sunset, so even if he were to go out right now and drive all the way up to Rolo’s, he wasn’t likely to see anything. And if it had been a major accident, someone would have already called it in and Keith would already be at a hospital, so the best thing for Shiro to do was wait right here.

 

Besides, Keith could still walk in at any time, perfectly fine and with some elaborate story about why he was three hours late.

 

But as the night progressed, Keith did not walk in. Lance kept powering through his essay, and Shiro supplied coffee and hot chocolate as needed while finding ways to try and occupy himself.

 

They both tried calling Keith a few more times, and they asked all their friends if anyone had heard from him. Their answer was a worrying no.

 

At 8:47, their calls were sent straight to voicemail. So wherever Keith was, his phone was now dead.

 

This did not please Shiro.

 

At ten, Lance packed up his notes and glanced at the door, biting his lip. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

 

“Only if you want to,” Shiro said. “I’m sure he’s fine. Soul-searching cross-country trip, like you said.”

 

Lance nodded. “Yeah…yeah I’ll just sleep on the couch, if you don’t mind. Mullet’s got me all worried about him now.”

 

Shiro gave a small smile. “How about a movie then?”

 

“Can we watch something Disney? I don’t want anything depressing right now.”

 

“I think that can be arranged.”

 

They ended up watching Emperor’s New Groove, and then Shiro dug through Keith’s clothes to find something for Lance to wear to bed.

 

Keith never came in.

 

Shiro tossed and turned all night, imagining more and more gruesome scenarios at what could have happened to his little brother.

 

He and Lance were both up at 4:30 in the morning, sitting at the table with cups of coffee in front of them and bags under their eyes. It was going to be a long day, and the _second_ Keith showed up perfectly fine Shiro was going to smack him with his heaviest textbook.

 

Because Keith was perfectly fine. Shiro refused to believe anything else.

 

He went to the gym like normal and went to his first class, but he couldn’t tell you anything that happened during either of them.

 

At 10:49, exactly one minute before his second class, he got a call from Rolo. He jumped up and ran out of the room to answer it.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hey, Shiro, it’s Rolo.”

 

“Yeah, I know. Have you heard from him?”

 

Rolo took a deep breath. “Not exactly. But I’ve got a pretty good idea what happened.”

 

Shiro’s mouth went dry. “Oh god.”

 

“Look, I don’t know anything for sure,” Rolo said. “But I noticed the guard rail around this one bend dented pretty badly, and I don’t remember seeing it like that before. I must have missed it last night.”

 

Oh this just kept getting better. “Rolo, where is my brother?”

 

“I…don’t know,” Rolo said. “I found his bike about twenty feet down. I couldn’t find him. Already called the cops, they’re on their way with a search team.”

 

The information refused to process in Shiro’s head for a good long while.

 

“Shiro?”

 

Keith had flipped over the guardrail. Keith wasn’t with his now wrecked bike. _Keith was missing_. Keith was probably hurt, and he’d been out there all night alone.

 

“Hey, man, you okay?” Rolo asked.

 

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Shiro said. He didn’t know what he could do, if anything, but he knew he had to be there. There was no way he could focus on class right now, in any case.

 

“Um, are you sure you should be driving right now?”

 

“I’ll be there,” Shiro repeated, and hung up the call.

 

He took a few deep breaths and tried to make his hands stop shaking. They didn’t, so he ran in to grab his stuff from the classroom, muttering an apology to his teacher and rushing back out the door.

 

It was a good thing he ran into Pidge while heading for his car. “Shiro, are you okay?” She fell into step beside him, practically jogging to keep up.

 

“No…they found Keith’s bike.”

 

“So where’s Keith?” Pidge asked.

 

“The million dollar question.”

 

“Oh, shit.”

 

“He flipped over a guardrail or something, they don’t know yet, but he wasn’t anywhere near the bike.”

 

“ _Oh shit_.”

 

They reached the parking lot and Pidge seemed to figure out what Shiro was planning.

 

“Okay, wait, hold on, you can’t drive. Give me your keys.”

 

“I have to-”

 

“I’m going to drive so you don’t also get in an accident,” Pidge said, stepping into his path and making him stop. “Gimme.”

 

He blinked at her, and in his hesitation she snatched the keys out of his hand.

 

“Alright, come on. Let’s go find Keith.”

 

Xx

 

Keith had a long list of things he hated. He’d never expected to have to add ‘Deer’ and ‘Rivers’ to that list. He was debating adding his reflexes too, because those were probably partially to blame for his current predicament.

 

The deer just _had_ to dart out into the road in front of him, and his damn instincts made him swerve right into the guard rail, which was there for a _freaking reason_ because the ground dropped away in a steep decline that Keith was now intimately familiar with until evening out at the river. The river he landed in and floated in until he remembered how to move.

 

He’d lost his helmet somehow in the tumble. He didn’t know how, but he had a vague image of smashing his face against a tree root and the visor giving way. It made as much sense as anything else right now. He’d also lost his phone somewhere along the way, and considering how often he’d rolled that at least he understood. But _man_ was it inconvenient.

 

He laid face down on the bank of the river, legs still half-submerged in the water because it hurt to move more than that. His left arm felt like actual fire, his chest was tight and painful, and he was fairly certain his left knee was _not_ supposed to twist that much, but it was submerged in the water and everything below his thighs had gone numb from the cold so he didn’t know if it actually hurt or not.

 

His face hurt too, and as the rest of the adrenaline continued to wear off, more aches and pains made themselves known. It got to the point where he had to wonder just how much pain could one person be in at one time? That was a question he’d never wanted answered.

 

Exhaustion replaced the adrenaline, and the urge to close his eyes and sleep was strong. A voice in the back of his mind whispered it was a bad idea, he shouldn’t go to sleep right now, not when he probably had a concussion, but for the life of him he couldn’t bring himself to care. If he slept, he wouldn’t feel all this pain.

 

So he slept.

 

He woke up when it was dark, body still aching and limbs stiff with cold. If he didn’t have hypothermia by now, he was probably well on his way.

 

Distantly, a memory played in his mind of the last time he almost had hypothermia. He’d had more layers on and it had been the dead of winter, but once the snow creeped in through your clothes you were done for.

 

That was what had killed his mother, in the passenger seat in front of him. Not the bleeding gash on her forehead, or the whiplash that almost broke her neck. Stupid cold.

 

His father had been hurt worse, spinning the car and taking the brunt of the crash on his side. The door had molded around his body, the glass shattering and cutting up all three of them in the impact. His father had bled out in an hour.

 

His mother froze to death four hours later.

 

Keith wasn’t conscious when they rescued him two hours after that.

 

He blinked, mud greeting his sight. It was so much darker than the white snow he’d been remembering. And yet, somehow, it might do the same thing the snow had tried to do, all those years ago. He’d survived that car crash only to die in one of his own, thirteen years later.

 

 _Shit_ he might actually die out here if he didn’t get help. He didn’t want to die. He’d worked too hard to get where he was now, he couldn’t give that up.

 

Okay, he needed to think. Chances of someone finding him were slim; he was in the middle of the woods and not visible from the road. And his phone was long gone, so he couldn’t call anyone.

 

So if he couldn’t rely on anyone else, he would have to save himself. Which meant he needed to move.

 

He audibly groaned at the thought. He very much did not want to move. Everything already hurt.

 

Did he really want to live if it meant moving right now? Was it worth it?

 

He laid there thinking about it longer than he should have, sleep threatening to take him under again. When he shifted to try and get more comfortable, fresh pain shot through him, waking him up enough to remember he was supposed to be figuring a way out of this.

 

There was nothing for it. He was going to have to move. But where? Back to wherever the hell his bike was? He didn’t even know how far he’d been carried, and even if he found his bike he couldn’t drive it like this. He needed to get to the roadside somehow, so that people could see him. What was the fastest way to do that?

 

It took more effort than he would have liked to create a vague mental image of where he was and where the road should be. He didn’t like his chances of cutting straight through the wood and crawling up the hill. That seemed like it might be too difficult right now.

 

But there was a bridge that passed over this river, eventually. He was pretty sure he hadn’t passed it yet. He just had to follow the river until he found it. That seemed doable.

 

Maybe.

 

If he could move.

 

He really didn’t want to move.

 

But he didn’t want to die, either, so…

 

He dragged his right arm under him and pulled his right leg out of the water. The left side of his body took the most damage, and he didn’t even want to try and move those limbs. They hurt enough as it was.

 

After checking which way the current flowed, which took him longer than it should have, he started dragging himself downstream.

 

It wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. His body was mostly numb from the cold now, dulling the worst of the pain. So he used his right arm to pull and his right leg to push, and slowly, ever so slowly, made it about ten feet before needing a break. He was trembling, and he wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone why. Fear? Cold? Pain? It was anyone’s guess.

 

At least he had the freedom to move. In the accident with his parents, they couldn’t even get out of the car. The front had been smashed and had pinned his mother in, and the bent frame had made it impossible for Keith to open the doors. Maybe if he’d been stronger, had more than a seven-year-old’s strength…the only thing he’d been able to do was scream for help until he lost his voice and watch his parents die when none came.

 

That wasn’t the case now though. He wasn’t a helpless seven year old. He was twenty, and he wasn’t trapped in a car. He could move, however slowly and painfully.

 

He took a deep breath and started again. His throat was so dry…it must have been a few hours since he’d anything to eat or drink. At least he wasn’t hungry, on top of everything else. But he was thirsty. If he just had water…

 

He glanced at the river. It was dirty. There would be bugs. Possibly life-threatening parasites. It was a bad idea. He wasn’t that desperate yet. He could make it to the bridge, get help, get some clean water then.

 

He looked longingly at the river again. _Water, water, everywhere_ _but not a drop to drink_. That was from something, wasn’t it? Keith couldn’t remember. It seemed appropriate, though.

 

He made it a little farther before needing to take another break. Even his good limbs ached. He was so tired…a little nap couldn’t do much worse to him, could it?

 

The warning bells in his head were muffled by everything else, and he let his eyes slip closed. When they opened again, it was still dark out, but he couldn’t tell how much time had passed, if any at all.

 

He blinked and looked around at the woods around him. Why was he camping again? Without a tent? This was a terrible spot to make camp. He didn’t even remember making plans to go camping. He’d never been camping in his life.

 

Wait, wait, the accident. He wasn’t camping. He was slowly dying in the middle of the damn forest because he could barely move.

 

Shit. He was supposed to be doing something…dragging himself to civilization, that’s right. Okay then. Right hand…right foot… _pain_ , so much pain. Had it hurt this badly earlier? Probably. He just needed to work through it, he’d be fine.

 

He had no idea how far he’d gotten from his starting point, but the bridge still wasn’t in view. He hoped he hadn’t passed it, that’d be awful. He’d be dragging his useless body around forever then.

 

The motion became repetitive after a while, something he didn’t need to think about. That was good, since his thought process seemed to be a little spazzy right now anyway. It was also bad, though, because it gave him plenty of time to think about how thirsty he was.

 

And the river was _right there_. He was starting to forget why it was a bad idea to drink the water straight like this. In the end, the only reason he didn’t was because the river was on his left side and he didn’t want to try and turn on that side. That would just be painful.

 

He kept dragging himself along for god knew how long and god knew how far. The exertion warmed him up, fighting off the hypothermia. It also made him less numb, which meant everything hurt that much more.

 

He stopped when the pain was too much again, facing the river. All that water…and he was so thirsty… He was probably going to die out here anyway. He might as well ease one of his sufferings.

 

The thought had passed through his head so easily, but it nearly made his heart stop when he really thought about it.

 

He probably would die out here. That damn bridge was nowhere in sight, and no one knew where he was. He had no way to get help.

 

He choked on a sob and bit his lip, trying to keep more from starting. He didn’t want to die. There was so much he still wanted to do…God, he just didn’t want to die. He wasn’t ready for that. He did not survive everything in his life up until now to die all alone in some lame accident because he swerved away from a freaking deer.

 

Curling up into as much of a ball as he could, he let the few tears he had fall.

 

Xx

 

It was easy to find the spot Keith had flipped over the guardrail. Police cruisers lined the area, lights flashing. They even had K9 units.

 

God, they even had _dogs_ to try and find his little brother. He was going to be sick.

 

“Come on,” Pidge said gently, climbing out of the car and moving over to his side. She helped him out and took a firm hold of his hand while they walked over.

 

Rolo met them halfway. “Shiro!”

 

“Please tell me they’ve found him?” Shiro asked. His legs were about to give out on him.

 

Rolo shook his head. “They found his helmet; looks like it got caught on some kind of tree branch or something and tore right off his head.”

 

Shiro paled.

 

Rolo reached up to scratch behind his neck. “And I think I overheard one of them saying he might have gone in the river and been carried downstream.”

 

 _The river?_ Could Keith swim? Shiro couldn’t remember. He was fairly certain Keith could swim. But what if he couldn’t? What if Keith survived the crash just to drown in the river?

 

“Hey, calm down,” Pidge said, squeezing his hand. “Deep breaths.”

 

They were shaky, but Shiro tried to do as she said.

 

“They’ve got dogs sniffing him out,” Rolo said. “They’ll find him.”

 

It wasn’t as comforting as Rolo seemed to think it was.

 

Shiro dragged his prosthetic down his face. “God…Do you really think he’s okay? He’s been out here since yesterday…and if he’s hurt…” Even if he had survived the crash, there was no guarantee he was still alive.

 

Pidge squeezed his hand again. “He’ll be okay. Keith’s tough.”

 

Shiro tried to hold on to that. They sat down on the side of the road to wait, Shiro bouncing his leg and dragging his hand through his hair over and over. He wanted to be out there searching with the police, but he’d already been blocked once and told to just stay put and wait.

 

Waiting was the _worst._

 

Pidge texted the group chat to let them know what was happening. His phone kept buzzing with their conversation, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at it.

 

He should have gone out last night with Lance to look for Keith. Maybe they would have found the dented guardrail and Keith’s bike. They could have gotten the police out there searching that much sooner, saved Keith from spending the night out in the cold. How far had the temperature dropped last night? And if he'd been in the river, he would have been wet on top of everything else.

 

“Breathe, Shiro,” Pidge reminded, knocking her knee against his.

 

He took a deep breath. It only marginally helped.

 

God…if Keith didn’t make it out of this…

 

Xx

 

He woke up a few times. At some point he noticed the woods were less dark, and at another the sun had fully risen. His head pounded in time with his heart, and his mouth felt like a desert. He was pretty sure even sand would be wetter at this point.

 

He only tried to continue crawling once before giving up on the venture altogether. Everything hurt and it was so much effort. He just wanted to lie there and sleep forever. He wanted to not be in so much pain.

 

He wanted someone to be there with him. He wanted someone else’s voice. He wanted his brother.

 

“Shiro…” the word was little more than a dusty whisper. He fell back asleep soon after.

 

Nothing had changed when he woke up again. He was still alone. Still hurt. Still in a hopeless situation. Did people even know he was missing yet? They had to, right? Lance would know Keith had missed their study date. And Shiro had to have noticed he never came home. Were they looking for him right now?

 

Even if they were, how were they supposed to find him? He was in the middle of freaking nowhere. He was going to die out here, all alone. He might as well accept that.

 

He shut his eyes and tried not to cry again. What had been the point in surviving the accident thirteen years ago if he was just going to die the same way now? It was like he wasn’t meant to have survived in the first place. Maybe he really wasn’t. Maybe that was why his life had been so crappy afterwards. Maybe this was just the universe setting everything right again.

 

He fell asleep again.

 

Dogs barking woke him up. He twisted his face in confusion. What were so many dogs doing this far out in the woods? And, was that…were those really…

 

 _Human voices_. People were out there.

 

He shifted, hope giving him just enough determination to lift his head and look around. _There_. Coming from upstream, a fuzzy person in a blue uniform, a dog in front of him. Keith blinked to try and straighten his vision out, but nothing really became clear until the man was on top of him. He was wearing a police officer uniform.

 

 _Police._ That was even better. Keith didn’t know why he’d been taking a stroll down here with his dog, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

“Hey, can you hear me?” the officer asked, laying a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

 

Keith nodded. His body was shaking again.

 

“Are you Keith Shirogane?”

 

Keith licked his lips and nodded again. He felt like he was about to cry again.

 

“Great. Just hold on, we’ll get you some help.” He turned and spoke into a walkie attached to his shoulder, speaking too quickly for Keith to make sense of.

 

Keith rested his head on the ground again, relief spreading through him. It might not have been Shiro, but there was someone here to help him.

 

Before he knew it, he was falling asleep again. The officer said something, his voice slightly panicked, but Keith couldn’t make out what it was.

 

Xx

 

Shiro was focused on his breathing again when it happened. The few police still stationed by the cars and huddling over maps got a call on the walkie, and then they were a bundle of activity.

 

“He’s close to the bridge, it’ll be easier to get an ambulance there,” one of them said.

 

Shiro stopped breathing.

 

The police folded up their maps and jumped into their cars, but not before one of them turned and said, “We found him. Paramedics are going to meet us at the bridge.”

 

Shiro nodded numbly. They found him! He was okay!

 

Pidge pulled him up to his feet and Rolo clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll take care of his bike, okay? Keep me updated on his condition.”

 

“We will,” Pidge said. Shiro still didn’t have the capability to talk.

 

She drove them down to the bridge. Off the side Shiro could just make out a group of policemen huddled up the river, presumably over his brother. The car had barely stopped before he was out the door and running, Pidge cursing his name behind him.

 

Shiro forced his way past the police, much to their annoyance, and finally laid eyes on his little brother.

 

Keith was a _mess_ , to put it lightly. He was covered head to toe in mud, and there were a bunch of scratches on his face. Both his left arm and leg seemed to be bent the wrong way, and he was shivering.

 

But…shivering was good. Shivering meant he was still alive.

 

“Keith?”

 

“He was awake for a minute,” one of the officers said. “But he passed out again.”

 

“He’s alive though,” another one said, clapping Shiro on the shoulder. “And we’re going to make sure he stays that way.”

 

Shiro nodded, emotions clogging his voice again. The next half hour was a blur of paramedics arriving and getting Keith on a stretcher, his dirty face even worse against the clean white sheets. Shiro rode in the ambulance with him, Pidge following behind in his car.

 

Shiro sat up next to Keith’s head, running a hand over greasy hair. The paramedics did some preliminary work for Keith, muttering stuff about hypothermia and dehydration and possible infections.

 

Keith was wheeled away when they got to the hospital, taken where Shiro wasn’t allowed to follow. He was stuck in the waiting room, bouncing his foot impatiently.

 

Pidge arrived with a cup of coffee. It tasted like shit, but it was warm and something to do. Two hours passed, during which the rest of their friends slowly arrived. Each of them brought either more coffee or something to eat, not that Shiro had much appetite. He nibbled at an apple anyway to make them feel better.

 

Lance and Hunk, bless those two, kept telling funny stories to try and lighten the mood. All the stories had been heard before, but they still surprised a laugh out of Shiro. It helped keep him from drowning in his worry and stress, in any case.

 

Not that it mattered when a doctor came out and called “Keith Shirogane?” The floor still fell out from under Shiro and his mouth went dry. He shook when he stood up.

 

“I’m his brother.”

 

The doctor nodded. “Well, your brother made quite a mess of himself, but he was pretty lucky overall.”

 

“He’s okay?” Shiro asked. Because that was the bottom line. That was what he needed to know.

 

“He’s not in any danger, but ‘okay’ might be stretching it a bit. Come with me?” The doctor had already turned, leaving Shiro little choice. He jogged to catch up to him. “None of his cuts were infected, thankfully, but he was dehydrated. We’ve got him on a drip for fluids and pain medicine.”

 

Shiro was keeping up so far. This was all part of what he’d imagined his brother would have to deal with. This was the easy stuff.

 

“He did unfortunately have beginning signs of hypothermia, so we’ve been doing everything we can to regulate his body heat.”

 

 The doctor walked into a single bed room in the ICU, and there was Keith, sleeping on a bed. He’d been cleaned up since Shiro saw him in the ambulance, leaving a pale face to blend into the hospital sheets. His hair was still greasy though, falling in clumps around his head. Gauze had been taped to his forehead, covering the worst of his cuts, and three other band-aids were placed around his face. The rest of Keith’s body was hidden under layers of sheets and heated blankets.

 

“Most of the damage was on the left side of his body,” the doctor went on, standing at the foot of Keith’s bed with his clipboard. “His left arm is broken in three places, and he fractured two ribs on his left side. He also dislocated his knee, which we reset but will still need some time to fully heal. Other than that he has a plethora of bruises all over his body and will be sore for most of the week.” He lowered the clipboard and looked at Shiro.

 

Shiro still hadn’t looked away from his little brother. “Oh, Keith…”

 

“The medication he’s on will keep him out for most of the night, but you’re welcome to stay with him during visiting hours. Your friends can come in a few at a time, as well, but like I said he probably won’t wake up for them.”

 

“No…that’s fine, thank you,” Shiro said. He took a deep breath. “When will he be able to go home?”

 

“I’d say Wednesday at the earliest. We definitely want to keep an eye on him overnight, and we want to make sure he’s able to regulate his own body heat tomorrow. His discharge will depend on that.”

 

Shiro nodded. That was sooner than he’d expected, considering how the list had just kept going. The doctor patted Shiro’s shoulder on the way out. “He’ll be okay.”

 

Hearing a doctor say it made it seem real, finally. Keith was alive; a little banged up, maybe, but alive. And he was going to stay that way.

 

Shiro sank into the chair by Keith. It was going to be a long wait for him to wake up, but there was nowhere else Shiro wanted to be right now.

 

Xx

 

Keith wasn’t sure what surprised him more when he woke up: the heat all around him, the lack of pain, the fact he was on a bed, or the blinding whiteness of the room around him.

 

Where was he? What was going on? He’d been in the woods, hadn’t he? Dying and in incredible pain next to the river…

 

Oh, right, some policeman found him. He’d probably been brought to a hospital then. That made sense.

 

He glanced around his room. It was small, and the only window showed a hallway on the other side. Shiro dozed in a chair next to him, head propped up on his human hand and nodding back and forth ever so slightly.

 

Keith blinked and took a deep breath. His throat was clogging up with sobs and his eyes were watering with tears he didn’t want to shed. But the relief at seeing his brother again, when he’d been so sure that he _wouldn’t_ , overpowered his attempt to bury his emotions. Shiro was here, Keith was here, someone had found Keith and brought him to a hospital, and Keith wasn’t going to die.

 

Keith wasn’t going to die.

 

He tried to bring up a hand to smother his sobs, but they were trapped under a mountain of warm blankets and he couldn’t get them out in time. He bit his lip, but not before a sob slipped out.

 

The little noise was enough to startle Shiro, who jumped up and leaned into Keith’s field of vision. “Keith? Hey, what’s wrong? Are you in pain? I can call a nurse in.” He cupped Keith’s face with his human hand, his prosthetic reaching for something out of Keith’s sight.

 

Keith shook his head, leaning into Shiro’s touch. “No…I’m okay…” His voice was hoarse and a little raspy, throat still dry as sandpaper. “Just…really happy to see you.”

 

Shiro smiled, his own eyes filling with tears. “I’m really happy to see you, too, kiddo. You gave me a good scare.”

 

“Sorry.” Keith kept his face pressed into Shiro’s hand, tears still rolling down his face.

 

Shiro dragged the chair closer and sat on the edge of it, pressing himself as close to Keith as he dared and wiping Keith’s tears away. “It wasn’t your fault. Shh, you’re okay now.”

 

Hearing someone else confirm it sent Keith over the edge, and his sobs grew harder. “I really thought I wouldn’t be.” He managed to drag his right hand out from under the covers and grabbed Shiro’s hand, clinging to him for dear life. The rest of his body protested too much movement, but that at least he could do.

 

Shiro said nothing, only gripped his hand right back.

 

Xx

 

Shiro’s back was sore from sitting up like this for so long, but he wasn’t about to move. He’d been waiting around for _hours_ for Keith to wake up, and even if Keith was barely aware of his surroundings he was aware enough to know that Shiro was there and was taking comfort in that; Shiro wasn’t about to take that away from him. Hell, Keith clinging to Shiro brought its own comfort to him.

 

He’d made everyone else go home a while ago; if Keith wasn’t even supposed to wake up, there wasn’t much point to them waiting around wasting their day too. It had taken some convincing, and they’d left one by one, but they’d finally gone. He was glad; it meant he got to have this time with Keith all to himself, and he was sure Keith wouldn’t want the others witnessing him like this either. Especially since, considering the amount of medication he was on, he probably wouldn’t even remember this moment.

 

It had been years since Shiro had last seen Keith cry. And maybe some of it was the influence of all the heavy drugs Keith was on, but that didn’t change the fact that Keith had been through something awful. Something bad enough to bring him to tears at the sheer relief of it being over.

 

Shiro glanced down at his prosthetic. He could understand that, in a way. Sometimes the hardest part of trauma was realizing it was over, that you could finally relax.

 

Keith had fallen asleep again, but he never relinquished his death grip on Shiro’s hand. It stayed tucked between his cheek and his shoulder. Shiro wasn’t about to move it in the slightest, not even to text their friends an update.

 

He only let it go when a nurse finally came in and kicked him out for the night. 

 

Xx

 

It was dark when Keith woke up again. He scanned his surroundings, eventually realizing he was still in the hospital. The window the hallway had the blinds drawn, and only slivers of light came through.

 

He was in the hospital. He was safe. Everything was fine.

 

He flexed his good hand. It had been bent at an awkward angle by his head for god knows how long, and it had gone numb. Right, he’d been holding Shiro’s hand.

 

Where was Shiro now? Did he go to the bathroom or something? Keith scanned the room again; he couldn’t even find evidence that Shiro had ever been there.

 

His hand twitched with the static feeling of the blood rushing back to it. Shiro must have been there, Keith hadn’t made up holding his hand.

 

He took a few deep breaths. Shiro probably went home to get some sleep, that was all. That was fine. Shiro needed his sleep, too.

 

Keith would be fine. He didn’t need Shiro here holding his hand the whole time.

 

Whether he _wanted_ Shiro here the whole time or not, he wasn’t going to admit even to himself.

 

It was hard to fall back asleep. He was still tired, but he couldn’t find a comfortable position. Any time he moved shot twinges of pain through him. Eventually, though, possibly because of the drugs in his system, he drifted off again.

 

He woke again when the nurses came in. One of them offered to wash his hair using some kind of cap thing. It was weird, but anything to get the grimy feeling off his head was welcome.

 

As soon as they were done bustling around, he fell asleep again.

 

Xx

 

Shiro was back first thing in the morning, a backpack full of homework to do with him. Keith was sleeping, but his hair had been cleaned and was still a little damp. He stared at it while he sat down. How did they clean it? There was no way Keith had taken a shower, or even a bath. Did they have him sit in a chair and lean back over the sink? Were nurses just magical?

 

He set his bag down and adjusted the chair, accidentally scraping it across the floor. Keith winced and blinked open his eyes. “Shiro?”

 

“Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. You can go back to sleep,” Shiro said. He reached out and pushed Keith’s hair out of his face.

 

Keith took hold of his hand again. “Stay?”

 

“Of course,” Shiro said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

That seemed to help him relax again. He drifted off, grip never slackening.

 

Shiro spent several minutes just watching Keith and thinking. In all the years Shiro had known Keith, he had never been clingy. There might have been times he didn’t want to be alone, but he would never admit to wanting company. It was almost like a different person lay in the bed in front of Shiro.

 

Or they had just really doped him up on a lot of pain meds and Keith was going to be mortally embarrassed when he found out later.

 

When Keith seemed to be in as deep a sleep as he was going to get, Shiro reached into his backpack and pulled out one of his textbooks. He balanced it on the edge of the bed and read through a chapter before a doctor walked into the room.

 

“Good morning,” he said.

 

“Morning,” Shiro said.

 

“Don’t mind me, just checking vitals,” the doctor said. He snatched the clipboard from the foot of Keith’s bed and checked the machines on the other side, making some notes. “Everything looks the way it should. I’d say he could probably head home tomorrow.”

           

“That’s great,” Shiro said. It would be nice to have Keith home again, even if Keith was stuck in bed for a few days.

 

“He’ll be sore, and it’d be best if he didn’t leave his bed too much,” the doctor went on. He replaced the clipboard at the foot of Keith’s bed. “I can write him a doctor’s note for any school or work that needs it. He won’t be up for anything strenuous for a week, at least.”

 

Shiro blinked. _School_. He hadn’t even considered that. He himself was doing homework, but he hadn’t thought to tell any teachers that he wouldn’t be in class, let alone Keith’s teachers. And Keith had a mid-term today.

 

The doctor chuckled. “Hadn’t gotten that far yet, I see.”

 

“Ah, no, not really,” Shiro admitted. He reached up and scratched the back of his neck.

 

“Should I give you warning that the nurses will be in to talk about the billing situation later at some point?”

 

Shiro’s eyes widened. He hadn’t even considered paying for all this. Hopefully his parents still had his college fund saved somewhere, since the army had paid for Shiro’s tuition and Keith had gotten so many scholarships—

 

His brain short circuited.

 

 _Their parents_. He hadn’t told their parents yet. They had no idea.

 

“Insurance should help cover most of it, assuming you have insurance,” the doctor said.

 

“No, well, yes, we do. But that’s not…I just realized I haven’t called our parents yet.”

 

The doctor blinked at him and snorted. “Should I ready a spot in the morgue for you?”

 

“Maybe,” Shiro said.

 

The doctor chuckled and shook his head, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I don’t envy your position. I have to get to the next patient, but if you need anything just call one of the nurses. They should be able to handle it.”

 

“Yeah, thanks,” Shiro said.

 

The doctor left, and Shiro stared down at Keith for a minute.

 

“The things I do for you,” Shiro muttered, finally taking his phone out of his pocket. His mother was going to smack him upside the head for waiting so long. With his own textbooks.

 

She answered on the fourth ring. “Hello? Shiro?”

 

“Hey, mom.”

 

 

“Is everything okay? You don’t usually call around now.”

 

“Uh, well….I guess this would probably qualify as no?”

 

“What’s going on? Are you okay?”

 

“I’m fine, it’s Keith, actually.”

 

“Oh no, what did he do? Did he get into a fight?”

 

Shiro snorted. Keith would love that that was their mother’s first reaction. “No, he wasn’t in a fight. He was in an accident.”

 

She went quiet. “Dear god. Is he okay?”

 

“He’ll be fine,” Shiro said quickly. “He’s pretty banged up, and he’ll be in the hospital until tomorrow at the earliest, and the doctor said he’ll probably need to stay in bed for the next week, but he’ll live.”

 

“That’s a relief. Are you with him right now? Can I speak to him?”

 

“He’s asleep right now,” Shiro said.

 

“Oh, then don’t wake him. I’ll be there in a few hours. Do you need anything? Is your kitchen stocked?”

 

Shiro’s automatic response was of course their kitchen was stocked, but then he realized that it was not. “Actually…”

 

She laughed. “We’ll go shopping tonight after I see Keith. I need to go tell my boss I’m leaving early, and then I’ll pack and head right over.”

 

“What about dad?”

 

“I’ll call him, too, but I don’t think he can leave today,” his mom said. “Take care, I’ll see you soon.”

 

“Yeah, see you soon.”

 

Well, not as painful as he’d thought it would be. Of course, he hadn’t mentioned how long ago the accident had been. That conversation was still to happen.

 

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “The things I do for you.”

 

Keith, thankfully, remained asleep.

 

 


	2. Breathless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> College: The Struggle is Real. 
> 
> It's even worse when half your body is broken and you're doped up on meds, but Keith is nothing if not determined. It's probably enough. Maybe.

In the twenty minute drive to the apartment, Keith had managed to fall asleep. It wasn’t entirely surprising with all the medications he was on, but it did mean he was groggy and cranky when Shiro woke him up upon their arrival.

 

The crankiness only grew when they realized there was no elevator to their third floor apartment.

 

Keith blinked out the windshield at the stairs. “I’ve decided I’m living in your car.”

 

Shiro held Keith’s door opened, glancing between his brother and the new bane of his existence. “If there was a bathroom in my car, I might consider it.”

 

Keith sighs. His knee isn’t actually that bad; he’s able to manage with a crutch under his right arm and not putting too much weight on it. But stairs. Stairs were not considered when answering the question “Can Keith get around on his own?”

 

There are elevators in every building on campus. Their apartment is all one level. Somehow, their desire for Keith to come home blinded them to the fact that said apartment was on the third floor.

 

“Come on, the sooner we start the sooner it’s over,” Shiro said.

 

Shiro hooked himself under Keith’s right side and helped him up, one step at a time. Their mother was already inside, setting things up. She’d taken the rest of the week off work and would stay through the weekend to play nursemaid for Keith. Their father had visited every night, and he’d come back for the weekend, but he hadn’t been able to get out of work. That was fine with Keith. He hated feeling like a burden to people.

 

He was dropped on the couch as soon as they were through the door. It had been layered with pillows and blankets and might have been comfier than his bed. He would compare later. After all the effort it took to get here, he was going to remain on this couch until further notice.

 

“I’ve got lunch!” their mother announced, carrying two plates of homemade hamburgers and sweet potato fries.

 

Keith salivated. Food that wasn’t hospital food. They helped him sit up and moved the coffee table so he had easier access, and he dug in as well as he could with one hand.

 

Shiro sat on the floor across from him, ignoring his meal in favor of texting all their friends. He held the phone up and said “Smile!”

 

Keith did not smile. Keith glared and continued to shove real food in his mouth.

 

Shiro took the picture anyway. “They’re gonna love that one.”

 

“We’ll have to replace your phone, soon,” their mom commented. She sat down on the floor as well, cradling a fresh cup of coffee. “Any preference?”

 

Keith had never had a preference for his phone in his life, other than it needed to be able to text his friends. He would gladly use a flip phone if that wasn’t somehow more expensive than smart phones. Mrs. Shirogane knew this.

 

“I’ll go with you to pick it out,” Shiro said. “We need to get Keith’s prescriptions anyway.”

 

Mrs. Shirogane bit her lip. “Will you be okay by yourself, Keith?”

 

“Lance wants to come say hi, he can look after Keith while we’re out,” Shiro said.

 

It was a good thing, too, because while Keith knew he one hundred percent should not be left alone right now, he would never on pain of death admit that. He was a loner and he liked his solitude, but he’d gotten his fill of that the other night.

 

They finished lunch and Shiro helped Keith to the bathroom before settling him back on the couch with the TV remote and a glass of water. “Lance is on his way, should only be fifteen minutes. You good that long?”

 

“I’ll be fine,” Keith said. He was always fine. Even with a few broken bones he was fine.

 

Faced with the silence of the apartment once Shiro and Mrs. Shirogane left, however, made his skin crawl. The TV didn’t help. He was too aware of how much space there was, of the empty bedrooms and still kitchen.

 

He found himself watching the time more than the TV, counting down the minutes until Lance got there.

 

Finally, there was a knock on the door, immediately followed by Lance letting himself in anyway. The skin-crawling feeling went away, chased away by Lance’s beaming smile.

 

Keith would reflect on that reaction later, when he wasn’t doped up on meds.

 

“Hey man! Good to see you out of the hospital!” Lance said. He shrugged out of his backpack and toed his shoes off, leaving them in a mess by the door. He reached down for his backpack. “Hunk says hi, by the way.”

 

He lifted out a tupper ware container and peeled back the lid before passing it to Keith.

 

Chocolate wafted through the air, and Keith drooled at the fresh brownies sitting before him. From the gooey mess inside the container, it looked like they were chocolate chip, just slightly under baked, the way Keith liked them.

 

Lance handed him a spoon. When he’d gotten one, Keith didn’t know. Keith didn’t care either. Keith wanted these brownies in his mouth.

 

Lance sat down quietly while Keith ate, fingers twisting his fidget ring. He’d had it as long as Keith had known him, a silver ring with a second layer over top the first that spun independently of the rest of the ring. Usually Lance only spun it when he was concentrating or when he was nervous.

 

Keith blinked and paused with the spoon in his mouth, head tilting to the side while he watched the ring spin. “What’s wrong?”

 

“Huh? Oh, um, nothing really. I’m just…really glad you’re okay.”

 

“Thanks, I guess?”

 

Lance gave a little laugh. “Y’know, that night, I was pissed at you for blowing off our study date. I had this plan to punch you on sight first time I saw you. And knowing what happened, now I just feel awful about that. You were lying out there hurt and alone and I was just pissed you were blowing me off.”

 

Keith was definitely not coherent enough for this conversation. “But you didn’t know.”

 

“I should have,” Lance said. “I know you better than that. You would never blow me off without a reason. And Shiro and I thought about going out to look for you, but we wanted to believe you were fine.”

 

Lance’s hands clenched into fists. “We should have looked for you.”

 

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Keith said. “I’d still be lying here with four broken bones and more pain meds in me than blood.”

 

“I know. But the idea of you lying out there all night like that…it kills me, man. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

 

Keith shrugged his good shoulder. It hadn’t been a picnic for him, but they couldn’t change that now.

 

“Sorry, you probably don’t want to talk about it,” Lance said. “Uh, can I get you anything?”

 

“More water?” Keith asked.

 

“No problem.” Lance snatched the cup and went to refill it.

 

Keith finished the brownie he was eating, and then he closed up the container. He didn’t have much appetite left, not even for Hunk’s baking.

 

Lance came back and gave Keith the water, and then he sat on the floor with his back to the couch, looking at the TV. “So, what are we watching?”

 

“I…honestly have no idea. Shiro put it on when he left.”

 

Lance snorted. “We’ll pretend this cooking show isn’t a subtle hint that you need to learn to cook.” He grabbed the remote and flipped through the stations.

 

“Shiro’s not allowed to complain about my cooking when he can make four things. And not even well.”

 

“I agree. But never tell him I said that I rely on you guys for food too much.”

 

Keith was the one stifling a laugh that time. It was a shame Lance hadn’t been able to visit him at the hospital more. He had this way of making people forget all the serious crap going on around them and reminding them that life didn’t completely suck all the time. Keith definitely needed that reminder now.

 

“Why is daytime TV literally the worst thing ever?” Lance complained. “Can I switch over to Netflix?”

 

“Go for it,” Keith said.

 

Lance had been reaching for the controller anyway, and he babbled on about a show he’d started watching with Hunk. “Y’know, when we’re not dying from midterms or other homework.”

 

Keith snorted again, and then he froze.

 

Midterms.

 

Homework.

 

 _School_.

 

He’d barely even thought about school for the last however many days. He never emailed his professors. There were at least two midterms he’d missed by now, depending on what day it was.

 

 _Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit_ he couldn’t afford to miss his midterms. He’d lose his scholarship. And then he’d have to drop out because he didn’t have the money to pay the tuition of this ridiculously overpriced school, and then he’d never get a job and he’d be mooching off the Shiroganes forever.

 

“Keith!” Lance yelled, slapping his hands on either side of Keith’s face.

 

Keith blinked up at him.

 

“Breathe,” Lance said. “You’re okay. Just breathe.”

 

He took a few minutes to calm down. “I need my laptop, I have to email my professors, and that essay…”

 

“Hey, no, calm thoughts,” Lance said. “We took care of that. All of your professors know already, you’re excused for the week. I think you’ve got extensions on your assignments or something.”

 

“Huh?” When did that happen? Did someone tell him that? Someone might have mentioned that, actually…

 

Lance went on to explain that Pidge hacked into Keith’s account to email all his professors and then how he himself had spoken to their English teacher about it. The way he made it sound was as if he’d fought some great battle on Keith’s behalf.

 

Which, granted, telling Professor Haxus on the day of midterms that one of the other students couldn’t take said midterm was not something Keith would ever want to do.

 

Keith offered Lance one of his brownies as thank you.

 

They settled in to watch _Lilo and Stitch_ and Keith tried to push the thought of school out of his mind. If there was any time to push off school work and not feel guilty about it, now would be it.

 

And yet.

 

Shiro and Mrs. Shirogane’s return distracted him for a while. Lance handled the set-up of his phone, and Shiro handed him a dose of pain meds. The haze they put him in helped stamp down the ideas of school work.

 

At some point he had dinner, and then he was shuffled off to bed and tucked in under his red comforter. He slept deeply without any dreams thanks to the meds, and before he knew it morning was intruding through his window.

 

Mrs. Shirogone was also intruding through the door, holding a glass of water and some pills. “Morning, honey,” she said. “How you feeling?”

 

He narrowed his eyes at her. Even on the best of days, he wasn’t a morning person.

 

“Don’t look at me with that tone of voice. I have your pain relievers.”

 

That was a fair point. He lessened the glare and shifted himself into as much of an upright position as he could manage. She handed over the pills and the water, and he downed them.

 

“I’ve got eggs and bacon for breakfast, if you’re up for it.”

 

And thus began the awkward relocation to the couch. It wasn’t so bad when Shiro pretty much man-handled him; Shiro had the strength to bench press Keith. (They tested this. Keith was equal parts impressed and humiliated). Mrs. Shirogane, however, was a foot shorter than Shiro and a good deal lighter. Keith even had several inches on her. So transferring him from his bed to the couch, with a pit stop to the bathroom, was a horrible ordeal that Keith never wanted to live through again. But finally, he was settled on the couch with food and some PBS show on.

 

Mrs. Shirogane settled down at the table with her work laptop and a cup of coffee.

 

For a moment, Keith was grateful she was able to do some work remotely. It made him feel like less of a burden.

 

After that first moment, though, his thoughts drifted back to school and his unfinished English essay. He had an extension, but he didn’t know how long that extension was or when it started. Either way, the sooner he finished the essay, the better. Besides, if he sat around all day doing nothing again he was going to go insane.

 

He pushed his empty plate onto the coffee table and weighed the benefits of attempting to get his laptop himself versus asking Mrs. Shirogane to get it.

 

He shifted on the couch, gaze focused down the hallway to his room.

 

“Don’t even think about it,” Mrs. Shirogane said. She stood up from the table. “What did you want?”

 

“My laptop,” Keith said, settling back into the couch. “It’s in my backpack, next to my desk. Actually can you bring the whole backpack?” He’d need his book and his notebook, too.

 

She nodded and was back in moments, helping him get set up. Everything was fine until he pulled the Anthology of North American Literature out of his bag.

 

“What are you doing?” she asked.

 

“Finishing an essay,” Keith said. “It was due Tuesday.”

 

He didn’t even know what day it was today. Thursday? Friday? Sunday again?

 

She sighed. “You don’t have to do that right now. You have time. You should be resting.”

 

“I’ve been resting all week,” he grumbled. Or however long it had been.

 

“And it’s the only time I’m going to encourage you to be lazy,” she said. “Take advantage of it.”

 

“I can do it,” he insisted. He had to. If he failed this class his GPA would plummet and he’d lose his scholarship and he’d worked too damn hard to get here to lose everything because he swerved around a stupid deer.

 

“How are you going to type with one hand?” she demanded.

 

Keith blinked and looked down at his left arm. The red cast left his fingers free, but it encased the rest of his hand up to his bicep and kept his arm bent at a slight angle. He could probably manage it…

 

He lifted his arm and placed his hand down on the keyboard. It was a little awkward, and his arm was already sore from the weird position.

 

The laptop vanished from his lap. “No,” Mrs. Shirogane. “I’m not-you can’t-no.”

 

“But—”

 

She held up a hand and he silenced. “You can handwrite it. I’ll type it out for you later.”

 

That…wasn’t ideal. But Keith would take the compromise. “I still need my laptop to go over what I already have.”

 

She handed it back. “Don’t push yourself too hard, okay? You don’t have to do everything all at once. You have time.”

 

It didn’t feel like he did.

 

He nodded anyway. She gave him a smile and left to go back to her laptop. He pulled up his essay and dug in, losing himself in what he was quickly deciding was the worst thing he’d ever written in the world.

 

Several hours later found his essay mostly rewritten, but it was finished. Mrs. Shirogane started typing it up while something cooked in the oven, and gave him strict orders to take a nap until dinner was ready. It wasn’t that hard to drift off. His meds made sure of that. They also kept him from dreaming most of the time, for which he was grateful. After that adventure, so similar to The Accident, he was sure his subconscious had nothing good planned for him.

 

Shiro came home while Keith napped, and their father arrived right before dinner was ready. After dinner Shiro proofed Keith’s essay, under protest that Keith didn’t even need to have this done for another week at least.

 

Keith did not care. Keith was already planning on emailing his professors on what he could do to catch up from home this weekend.

 

This was made a lot harder when his foster parents decided that they all needed to bond since they were in town for the weekend. Keith hadn’t even known they’d owned that many board games.

 

By Sunday Keith was both more mobile and more frazzled. He’d missed an _entire week_ of class and tests and homework and _no one was letting him start catching up_. It didn’t matter if he had an extension on his assignments. They still needed to get done.

 

At least he didn’t need help getting from the couch to his bed anymore. He could limp the short distance fairly well, even if he wasn’t supposed to yet. And he had a crutch he could lean against if he needed to, but it was almost harder to use in their apartment than just limping. He’d need it the rest of the week when he finally ventured out to class again.

 

Their parents left Sunday afternoon, only to be replaced by all of their friends wanting to check up on Keith. It was nice, and he was flattered and had a warmth vibrating in his chest from their concern. But he also had anxiety racing through his blood at all the work he still needed to do. He was going to be so far behind when he got back.

 

By the time all their friends left, Keith had had his night dose of meds and wasn’t coherent enough for anything besides getting to bed.

 

He still couldn’t go to class that Monday, but he was at least able to study. It helped calm some of the anxiety, but not enough.

 

Tuesday he had a checkup with the doctor and they lowered some of the meds he was on, and as long as he felt he could handle getting around with a backpack and crutches he was free to attend class.

 

Shiro forced him to wait until Wednesday.

 

Keith was not a happy camper that night. He’d been cooped up for a week now, barely moving from his nest on the couch.

 

The others were over, and part of him regretted his snappish mood with them, but he couldn’t help it. He needed to be doing something, not sitting here watching the hundredth movie of the week.

 

Lance nudged his good leg. “Everything okay?”

 

Keith glared at him.

 

“Okay, bad question.”

 

“He’s grumpy because I wouldn’t let him go to his afternoon classes today,” Shiro said.

 

Lance pulled a face. “But that’s our English class. Why would you _want_ to go to that class?”

 

“Because I’ve missed a week and a half and it’s going to be hell catching up as it is,” Keith said. None of them got it. None of their lives were banking on maintaining a scholarship. And sophomore year was the year it really mattered, too. Freshman year they were more lenient, since students needed the year to adjust. But if they didn’t make it in their second year then they’d lose it. Keith wasn’t going to let that happen.

 

“We’ll all help you, dude, you don’t need to worry so much,” Hunk said.

 

“Seriously. You’ll regret wanting to get back so much the second you’re in class again,” Pidge said.

 

Keith didn’t see how Pidge could possibly judge him when she was working on a lab report while they watched _Finding Dory_.

 

Lance snapped his fingers. “I know what you need.” Jumping up, he ran into Keith’s room.

 

“Hey! What are you doing?” No one went into his room without permission.

 

“Give me a sec!” Lance called back.

 

Shiro stood up from the kitchen table where he’d been doing his own psychology paper. “Lance.”

 

Lance returned with Keith’s sketchbook and pencil case in hand, proudly presenting them to Keith. “You haven’t drawn anything since the accident, right?”

 

Keith stared at his sketchbook and shook his head. He either hadn’t been coherent enough to draw or too busy with other schoolwork.

 

“Then here you go!” Lance said, putting the pencil case in easy reach for Keith and slipping the sketchbook into his grasp. “Draw all your angst away, or whatever.”

 

The corners of Keith’s mouth quirked. “Thanks, Lance.”

 

“Anytime.” He resumed his seat in front of the couch.

 

Keith flipped open the sketchbook, taking his time looking over some of his past work before reaching a fresh page.

 

Art had never been an obvious choice for someone like Keith. He’d always been too angry, too impatient, in too much trouble. But it was a hobby that he’d always had available, no matter what foster home or detention hall he was stuck in. There was always paper and pencil available, and before he knew it he’d actually become decent at it. And then he’d been forced to take an art class at one school, found he enjoyed it more than other subject, and decided, yeah, this was life. This was what he wanted to do.

 

He took out a pencil and started sketching curved lines.

 

It wasn’t until college when he’d met Rolo and saw the tattoo parlor that Keith determined what kind of art he wanted to do. Rolo had been more than happy to let Keith help out and get used to how the shop worked, and sometimes Keith even got to use the equipment. He’d never lined anything yet, only filled in solid colors on what Rolo had already outlined, but it was all part of getting used to painting living flesh. Skin was a lot less forgivable than paper. So were customers, for that matter.

 

 _Finding Dory_ ended and they switched over to watching _Friends_ since everyone was absorbed in something, but Keith barely noticed. Curves became seaweed and schools of fish, smudges became shadows. Anxiety dulled to white noise.

 

Funny how Lance was the first person to think of this. Even Shiro hadn’t suggested he try drawing yet.

 

Then again, Lance did seem to be acutely aware of Keith, and he was so good with people he could even figure out what Keith needed most of the time, sometimes before Keith realized it himself.

 

Keith poked the back of Lance’s head.

 

“Owwww, what?” Lance complained, rolling his head back to glare at Keith upside-down.

 

“Thank you, again. This really helped.”

 

Lance beamed and shifted to look at Keith properly. “Good, I’m glad. Can I see what you drew?”

 

Keith’s first instinct was to shield the page. He’d been getting better in the last few months about sharing his work; he had to, if he wanted to be a professional. But that intrinsic instinct would always linger. He had to physically remind himself that it was okay and dip the book down where Lance could see.

 

Lance’s eyes lit up. “Did you draw fish because we were watching _Finding Dory?_ ”

 

Keith shrugged. “It was the first thing that came to mind.”

 

“I love it,” Lance said.

 

Keith smiled.

 

Xx

 

Classes the next day were an interesting adventure. Mobility was still more of a challenge than he liked, but he knew he was stubborn enough to pull through. And thanks to all his studying, he wasn’t as far behind as he thought he’d be. He scheduled make-up midterms with his professors and had some of his missing assignments waived, which lifted an incredible weight off of his shoulders.

 

But if the questions and the staring from fellow classmates didn’t stop he was going to knock some heads with his crutch.

 

He knew he looked like a mess. The cuts around his left eye were still healing and one splitting his eyebrow was threatening to scar, he leaned heavily on his crutch, and one of his friends was following him around like a personal guard or something. They’d figured out which one of them either had a free period or a class in the same building as his, and they’d worked out a schedule to follow him around all day.

 

Which, okay, he could admit not having to carry his bag when an entire side of his body was basically out of commission was nice.

 

But goddamn it he was _healing_ he could do it himself. He’d manage. Somehow.

 

Allura sighed at his glare at the end of his last class. “We’re not babysitting you, you know. And we’re not just here to carry your books.” She picked up his bag and shouldered it along with her own. “Truthfully this is more for us than for you.”

 

“How do you figure that?” He limped out of the classroom and towards the elevator.

 

“Because this way we can see for ourselves how you’re doing. We’re all concerned and just want you to be okay.”

 

He should have had this fight with Lance or Pidge. Then he’d have at least been able to rant a little without feeling like he was facing off against a kitten. Allura always knew exactly to deflate whatever angry momentum he had. No wonder she passed her International Relations major with flying colors. She would make a great diplomat when she finished grad school.

 

He jammed his thumb into the down button for the elevator. “It doesn’t mean you get to follow me around all day,” he grumbled.

 

They stepped into the elevator and she pressed the button for floor one. “Does that mean you don’t want a ride back to your apartment then?”

 

He mentally swore. He’d forgotten Allura had offered to drive him home since his bike was toast and Shiro had work tonight.

 

“I’m sorry. I’m just…it’s a lot to deal with.”

 

She softened. “I know. I know you don’t mean to lash out at us.”

 

There was an unspoken _But knock it off before I clobber you_ in there somewhere.

 

He’d have to do better at controlling his temper. Story of his life.

 

She drove him home and the others showed up for dinner and they all worked on homework, and Hunk quizzed him for one of his rescheduled mid-terms.

 

That was how the rest of the week went, with Keith ignoring the looks from his classmates and doing his best to keep up with the course work, and trying his damnedest not to lash out at his friends anymore.

 

It was a rougher week than it should have been. He spent the weekend studying for his last few midterms, took them the following Monday and Tuesday, and finally felt like he was catching up to where he was supposed to be. The air was a little easier to breathe, and not just because his ribs were healing quickly. For that week, things couldn’t get better.

 

And then the week ended and his midterms were graded. 

 

“I’m so screwed,” he stated, staring wide-eyed at his laptop screen.

 

There had to be a mistake. Was he in the wrong account? There was no possible way he could have a ‘D’ on a mid-term.

 

Panic chilled his body and churned in his gut. He was going to be sick.

 

“It can’t be that bad,” Pidge said. “It’s one grade.”

 

“But it’s in Haxus’s class!” Keith groaned, falling back into the couch cushions. “We only have five grades in the entire semester and I just bombed one of them!”

 

“Who only gives five grades?” Hunk twisted his face.

 

“Evil people, that’s who,” Lance chimed in. Haxus was their shared English professor. He complained about the man often.

 

“He has to be evil if he gave you a ‘D’ considering the circumstances,” Matt said, leaning over the arm of the couch.

 

The others winced at the announcement of the grade.

 

“That might be hard to come back from,” Pidge allowed. “What are the other grades you have for him?”

 

“Participation, a group project, another essay, and the final,” Lance answered. “And participation is, what ten percent?”

 

A ten percent Keith probably didn’t have. He wasn’t one for speaking up in class, especially not on obscure classic literature.

 

“Okay, so you barely pass one class, it happens,” Hunk said. “You can balance it out with other classes.”

 

Hunk made it sound so easy.

 

Matt clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, that won’t be hard. You’ve got B’s on the other mid-terms. It’s really not that bad.”

 

Except now Keith had to ace pretty much everything else for the rest of the semester. His GPA was a 3.6, he couldn’t barely pass a class. That would drop it below the 3.5 he was required to maintain.

 

Nausea churned his stomach. He was going to lose his scholarship for sure and be forced to drop out.

 

“I still don’t see how you got a ‘D,’” Lance said. “You understood everything in that class.”

 

But he’d known his essay was terrible and sent it anyway, and that counted for seventy percent of the midterm. God he should have waited until he wasn’t on such heavy meds like he was supposed to.

 

“Yeah, you should talk to Haxus, see what happened,” Pidge said.

 

“Maybe he’ll let you retake it, you know, considering the circumstances,” Hunk said.

 

Keith shared a look with Lance. That was as unlikely as the moon actually being made out of cheese. But talking to Haxus wasn’t a terrible idea.

 

He emailed the professor right then and there, and miracle of all miracles Haxus replied not twenty minutes later, saying he had an open spot Monday afternoon if Keith wanted to stop by.

 

Keith could barely wait that long.

 

 

Xx

 

Monday afternoon, three o’clock sharp, found Keith knocking on the open door of Haxus’s office.

 

“Ah, Keith, come in. And shut the door, would you?” Haxus barely looked up from the paper he was reading, red pen tapping the edge of the page. Haxus was tall and slim, with olive tinted skin and dark brown hair slicked back over his head. His nose came down in a sharp angle, and his with his pronounced canine teeth there’d been many rumors of him actually being a vampire.

 

Lance may or may not have started some of those rumors.

 

Keith may or may not have helped.

 

Keith shuffled in, shutting the door. It was an odd request, most teachers preferred to leave the door open, but there was a group of students in the lobby down the hall he might have been worried about.

 

He lowered himself into one of the chairs facing Haxus’s desk. The office was well lit with a window behind Haxus, and the books on the shelves were in pristine condition. Everything in the office was in pristine condition, even the piles of papers on the desk.

 

Haxus made another mark on the paper he was grading and then set the pen down, lacing his fingers together under his chin and staring at Keith. “I had a feeling you’d want to discuss your grade.”

 

“I just don’t understand why it was a ‘D.’ Did I really do that badly?”

 

Haxus pulled a folder over and slid some papers out. “On the contrary, your essay and test were one of the highest in the class.”

 

Keith had come in on unsteady footing in the first place, but now he really didn’t know where he stood. “I don’t understand, then.”

 

Haxus sighed and looked back up at Keith. “It was late.”

 

Keith straightened and drew back. “I had an extension.”

 

“Yes, but the extension was not granted until Thursday, two days after it was due. Therefore the ‘B’ it earned was reduced to the ‘D’ you received.”

 

It took Keith a solid ten seconds to process that. And then familiar rage coursed through him. “Are you kidding me? I was in the hospital! You think I’m walking around like this for fun?”

 

“Settle down. I understand there were circumstances beyond your control. That’s why I allowed it to be turned in late at all.”

 

“I almost died!”

 

“But you did not, and I do not make exceptions for anyone, for any reason,” Haxus said. “Nor do I offer extra credit, so save your breath. You’ll have to work hard to make it up on the final.”

 

Keith took a deep breath. His whole body shook with rage. “So you’re saying, because I was unconscious and _physically unable_ to ask for an extension sooner, I lost two whole letter grades?” The fact that it hadn’t even been him to ask for the extension was irrelevant.

 

“Allow me to provide a metaphor to explain this,” Haxus said, leaning back in his chair. “Say you’re working on closing a deal with a client for a business. You have until such and such a date to finish it. The day the deal is due, you’re in an accident. You miss the appointment. Your client doesn’t care. You’ve lost your chance.”

 

“I think if I called to tell them I almost died they’d be a little sympathetic,” Keith ground out.

 

“You can only hope you’ll be that lucky,” Haxus said. “I’m sorry this happened to you. If you don’t think you can pull your grade up for finals, you’re welcome to drop.”

 

Keith ground his teeth together, and his right hand curled around the arm of the chair.

 

Haxus didn’t think he could do it.

 

It was a well-known fact that Keith Shirogane did not do well with people who thought he couldn’t do something.

 

He snatched his bag and his crutch. “I’ll see you in class tomorrow.” He stormed out as well as someone limping on a crutch could, but he was at least able to slam the door. He heard something crash on the other side, and he hoped it was whatever certificate that granted Haxus the right to teach.

 

Shiro waited for him by the door, and he caught Keith’s foul mood immediately. “I take it things didn’t go well?”

 

Keith explained what happened, shoving his crutch in the backseat and slamming doors because he could.

 

Shiro stood in stunned silence when Keith finished, finally yanking open his door and getting in the car. “That’s _crap!_ ”

 

“I told him that! Nothing would change his mind. He said it was only because I had a medical excuse I was even granted the extension.”

 

“That’s such crap, he can’t do that!” Shiro said.

 

“What am I supposed to do about it?” Keith asked. “He pretty much told me to either suck it up and work my ass off to pass the final or drop out now.”  

 

“No, that’s not okay. There has to be someone we can talk to about this. Who’s the head of the English department?”

 

“Professor Sendak,” Keith said. The brief flash of hope he had withered when he remembered. “And those are best friends or something, so Sendak won’t overrule him for me.”

 

“Damn,” Shiro muttered. He finally started the car, and Keith buckled himself in and reclined the seat.

 

Maybe, with a lot of studying, he could pull it off. It wouldn’t be fun; he’d probably have to give up his Sundays at the parlor with Rolo, but he already had while he was recovering. Rolo would understand if he needed the rest of the semester.

 

The first half of the drive was quiet, Keith adjusting to the hell his life was about to be, and Shiro apparently still brainstorming how to change Keith’s grade.

 

“I’m going to email the dean. Maybe he can do something.”

 

Keith almost shot upright. “You’re going to _what_?”

 

“I got him to open up another class when I needed it, he’s got to have some power over Haxus.” Shiro looked and sounded completely calm.

 

“You don’t even go here anymore,” Keith pointed out.

 

Shiro had graduated that spring, and currently he went to a grad school twenty minutes up the road. He still worked in the area though, and their apartment was a halfway point between the schools.

 

“Maybe being alum will give me more power,” Shiro shrugged.

 

“Which will be completely negated when they realize you’re my brother,” Keith said. He leaned back in the seat again, rubbing a hand over his face. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure it out.”

 

At least he had Lance in the class. That would help him study and come up with smart things to say in class, which would raise his participation grade.

 

“But you shouldn’t have to,” Shiro stated, frowning at the road.

 

Keith shouldn’t have had to do a lot of things in his life, but that apparently wasn’t a good enough basis for all the crap he’d been through. This was just another road bump. He’d be fine.

 

For two weeks, that was true. He spoke in class, he read and reread all the material, and he’d already started the final essay. Lance thought he was absolutely insane, but that wasn’t earth shattering news.

 

 But two weeks later, the nightmares started.

 

Snowy roads. Black ice. Spinning. Tires squealing. The crunch of metal as the guardrail broke, as the car bent around a tree. Glass shattering. Blood. _So much blood_. Vibrant against pale skin, scattered on the roof of the car. And cold, so cold.

 

Keith woke, panting, quilt tossed on the floor.

 

He hadn’t had a nightmare of _that_ accident that vividly in years. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why.

 

But unlike when he was ten and panicking, he knew how to calm himself down now. He took measured breaths, focused on Shiro’s soft snoring in the room next to his. He picked his quilt back up and wrapped it around himself, curling up on his bed as well as he could with the cast on his arm.

 

Everything else was healed now, mostly. His knee still gave him trouble if he walked around too much, and like he’d thought the cut through his eyebrow had scarred, but he was leagues ahead of where he’d been a month ago.

 

He still wasn’t about to go back to sleep. Not after that nightmare. He was up for the day now. He snatched his phone off the desk next to his bed. Distractions had always served him well.

 

But they didn’t stop the nightmares from haunting him at night, and after so many weeks of good sleep, his body wasn’t ready to go back to such poor sleep.

 

And all that hard work he’d put into his classes started slipping.

 

It was subtle, at first. Quiet in class again, couldn’t focus on his homework as well at night. Another test he took a week later he got back with a bright red ‘C’ on it and he felt his stomach plummeting.

 

He could study as much as he wanted, but it wouldn’t do him any good if he was too tired during the test to read the questions right.

 

Long brown fingers snapped in front of Keith’s eyes. He jerked back and nearly tipped his chair over. “What the hell, Lance?”

 

“I’ve been calling your name for three minutes,” Lance said. He crossed his arms on the library table. “You going to help me with the project or not?”

 

Thankfully, they’d been allowed to choose their groups for the English project. More luck, it was only pairs. Keith trusted Lance to pull his own weight on the project, and their presentation on ‘changing societal norms’ throughout American literature would be fine. Probably.

 

If Keith could focus on it for more than two minutes at a time.

 

He shook his head. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

 

Lance frowned at him. “I was saying it might be easier to narrow down what ‘Societal Norm’ we want to talk about, like how women were treated or how they thought about war.”

 

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Keith said, rubbing a hand over his face. His arm was finally out of a cast, but it was still out of commission in a sling and he had physical therapy twice a week, which, going into the last two weeks before finals, was not an extra thing he needed right now.

 

“Are you okay?” Lance asked.

 

“Just tired. But who isn’t?” That was the mantra of every college student everywhere.

 

“I heard that,” Lance said. “But seriously, you’ve been out of it for a while now. Anything you want to talk about?”

 

“I’m fine. Been a rough semester is all.”

 

Lance still didn’t seem convinced, frowning and looking him up and down.

 

“We have a project, remember?” Keith said, looking back down at his notebook. “If we want to look at women through literature, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ might be a good one to talk about.”

 

Lance threw his head back and groaned. “If I never have to think about the story again it will be too soon.”

 

“But it’s one you already know and won’t have to focus on too hard,” Keith said.

 

“You make a compelling argument,” Lance said. He wrote a few things down in his notebook, and the rest of the hour passed like that. They flipped through their anthology to find stories to discuss, and Keith was able to pretend he was fine for a while longer.

 

Thanksgiving passed, Finals came, his arm was finally cleared of the sling and it was like the accident never happened.

 

Somehow, not having the physical reminders made the nightmares worse.

 

It was a terrible time to not be sleeping well, and it showed when finals were over and the grades were handed in.

 

English was a ‘C’, and the rest of his classes were low ‘B’s. It wasn’t the worst report card in the history of report cards, but it was enough to bring his GPA down to a 3.3.

 

Two points below the average he needed to maintain.

 

“So, how’d you do?” Shiro asked.

 

Keith couldn’t remember how to speak.

 

Shiro peered over his shoulder, and then he sucked in a breath and clapped a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Don’t panic. They probably won’t even look at it until the end of next semester. You’ve got time to bring it up.”

 

Keith nodded and tried to believe it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to my fanfic where the academics are made up and accurate GPA doesn't matter.   
> I joke. I'm just not a math person and have no idea how to actually calculate GPA so we're gonna roll with it. 
> 
> VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION FOR YOU ALL: Do you want me to show Keith and Lance getting together in this or leave it platonic? I can do either.


	3. Fluttering Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovery is an uphill battle and a downward slide.

Keith’s only saving grace was that it was winter break and there was nothing he could do right at that moment for his poor GPA. It forced him to take time and calm down and think.

 

He had mostly art classes, and he was confident in passing those. A high enough grade should be enough to bring his GPA back up to where it needed to be. So, really, it shouldn’t be an issue and he should take Shiro’s advice and calm down.

 

Yet here he was, sleep deprived and panicking that all his hard work had been for nothing.

 

And as if his bad mood wasn’t bad enough, halfway through break it started snowing.

 

He glared out his window before bed, watching the devil flakes fall past. “Were my nightmares not enough for you? You had to come and make it worse?”

 

“Who are you talking to?” Shiro asked.

 

Keith snapped his head around. “Uh, no one.”

 

Shiro leaned against his door frame. He wore mismatched flannel pajamas, and he’d already taken his prosthetic off for the night. “Are you threatening the snow again?”

 

“Maybe.” It probably would have devolved into threats if Shiro hadn’t scared the crap out of him.

 

Shiro shook his head. “Weirdo.”

 

“Shut up,” Keith said. “Did you need something?”

 

“Wanted to warn you I picked up a second shift at work tomorrow, so I’ll be gone all day,” Shiro said.

 

Something in Keith twisted, like it always did when faced with the prospect of being alone for long periods of time. He’d been like that since the accident. Everyone had started to take note of it, but it was one of those things no one mentioned or drew attention to. They’d do little things like this instead, warning him and arranging it so someone happened to stop by.

 

But with everyone else home for winter break, there was no one to stop by. And Shiro paid rent on their apartment on his own, with the occasional help from their parents, plus he was the type to always say yes when someone asked him to cover for them. Keith couldn’t fault him for picking up another shift, even if it did mean he’d be crawling the walls with anxiety all day. He couldn’t even go anywhere, because Shiro would have the car and Keith didn’t have his bike back yet.

 

“You going to be okay?” Shiro asked.

 

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Keith said. Maybe he’d call Rolo and hound him about his bike. The minor damage it had taken in the accident had been repaired ages ago, but Keith hadn’t been able to ride it with all his injuries so Rolo had hung on to it. Keith was cleared for riding, even if a motorcycle wasn’t practical for winter, and he was pretty sure Shiro had something to do with the fact Rolo was taking so long to get it back to Keith.

 

If Rolo wanted his free intern back next semester he was going to have to hand it over.

 

“I’ll pick something up for dinner on the way home. You want to line up some movies for us?”

 

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Keith said. “Can you get Chinese?”

 

Shiro made a pained noise. “ _Chinese_ in my own home.”

 

Keith rolled his eyes and sat back on the window ledge. Tension rolled out of him. “It’s not like there’s a decent Japanese restaurant in a fifty mile radius.”

 

“Fair point,” Shiro conceded. “We’ve really got to get on that. If they can have a _Korean_ restaurant, there should be a Japanese one.”

 

“Sure thing. I’ll do that tomorrow. But you’re still picking up Chinese food.” Shiro only ever made a fuss about Chinese food when Keith asked for it. Any other time he couldn’t care less about Chinese vs. Japanese food.

 

It was a familiar banter, and Keith appreciated that more than Shiro could ever know.

 

“And I’m letting you choose the movies,” Shiro grumbled, turning away from the door. “None of your conspiracy documentaries, we clear?”

 

“I wouldn’t watch them with a non-believer anyway,” Keith said. He’d save them all for Pidge. “Now go to bed.”

 

Shiro smiled and shook his head. “Good night.”

 

“Night.” Keith shut the door behind Shiro and flicked off his light, climbing into bed.

 

He hadn’t told anyone his nightmares had returned, but he had to wonder if Shiro knew anyway. He’d been making a point of coming in to say good night for the last few weeks and always seemed to have extra coffee ready for Keith in the morning.

 

Shiro was too nice. Keith didn’t deserve half the things his brother did for him.

 

His nightmares apparently agreed.

 

Usually it was playback of the memory, a straight-up reliving of the event. For all his imagination, the accident never deviated in his mind. The car hit black ice. They crashed into the guardrail and slid through the snow until they wrapped around a tree. The shattered glass sliced up his father, and the man had bled out in two hours while they waited for help. His mother froze to death in the front seat.

 

Keith had survived because he’d been moving most of the time, scrambling around the back seat trying to force the twisted doors open. He’d been able to keep his blood moving. His mother, pinned by the dashboard, hadn’t.

 

His nightmares liked to exaggerate her final moments, the sudden stillness and the last puff of air from her mouth.

 

He didn’t look at his father too much. He didn’t like thinking that he’d spent hours next to the man’s corpse. But he always glanced over every now and then, in case he was wrong and his father wasn’t dead, maybe this time Keith would see his chest rise.

 

He didn’t see his chest rise. But he did see a cut across his father’s nose, one he didn’t remember. He didn’t remember his father having white hair either.

 

His eyes widened.

 

That wasn’t his father.

 

“No…”

 

That was—

 

“No!”

 

He jerked himself awake, flailing on his bed before he was able to figure out where he was. His heart pounded. Blood rushed through his ears. That was the only thing he could hear for a while, until his erratic breathing made it through.

 

Only a nightmare. It was only a nightmare. Shiro was fine. Shiro was asleep in the next room. He’d never been in that car.

 

He slammed a hand over his mouth. He was about to sob. That hadn’t happened after a nightmare since he was a kid.

 

And it was so dumb. It was a nightmare, that was all. It wasn’t even real. It shouldn’t be affecting him this badly. Shiro was fine.

 

Keith held his breath for a moment so he could hear Shiro’s snores. Proof that was Shiro was alive.

 

His dad had been alive when they first crashed, too, his mind whispered like a traitor.

 

He stilled, and then he was a blur of motion, ripping the sheets off his bed and sprinting out his door, crashing into Shiro’s room. He had to see, had to _know_ …

 

Shiro woke with a start, jumping up and flinging a pillow at Keith in defense.

 

Okay. In hindsight, barging into the room of a sleeping war vet with some PTSD issues was not Keith’s best plan ever. He deserved the pillow in the face.

 

The _book_ Shiro had apparently shoved into the pillow case at some point was uncalled for.

 

“Ow,” Keith yelped, grabbing his nose.

 

“Keith?” Shiro gasped. “ _Christ_ don’t do that. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

 

A light flicked on and Keith blinked. “I think you gave me a concussion. What the hell?”

 

Shiro slipped out of bed and came over, digging out the second Harry Potter book from the pillow case. “Whoops. I think that’s been there for a while. But not the point. What are you doing in here?”

 

“I…um…”

 

Yeah Keith hadn’t really thought this far ahead.

 

Shiro sighed and rubbed one of his eyes. “Nightmare?”

 

“…yeah.”

 

Shiro nodded and walked back over to his bed, placing the book down on his nightstand. “You’re welcome to stay, if you want.”

 

“No, I…” Keith half turned back to the hallway. “I’m fine, now.”

 

Shiro climbed back under his covers and turned back to Keith, brow raised. “It’s only weird if you think it’s weird.”

 

“Well it’s even weirder now, so good night.” He felt a lot stronger than he felt when he closed Shiro’s door and returned to his room.

 

He flicked his light on and grabbed his sketchbook. It wasn’t even worth trying to fall back asleep.

 

Later, he drifted to sleep with his sketchbook in his lap. He woke up with a crick in his neck and an ache in his knee from being bent for so long. Shiro had left already, and he had the apartment to himself.

 

For hours.

 

He propped his leg up on the coffee table, a mug of tea in hand, and put on _Stranger Things_. Two episodes later, he couldn’t remember a single thing that had happened. He tapped his fingers on his mug.

 

“Get it together, Keith,” he muttered to himself. “You used to beg to be left alone all day.” He’d risked beatings in his worst foster homes by staying out all day. He could handle being alone in the apartment for a few more hours.

 

He tried video games, but he couldn’t get into them. He tried drawing, but nothing came out right and he threw the sketchbook down in frustration. He even baked a cake and made icing in the hopes having something to focus on would calm him down.

 

It did, while it lasted. But when he was done cleaning up it was only two in the afternoon and he was right back where he started.

 

The cake probably wouldn’t even taste that good. Hunk had ruined them for anyone else’s baking.

 

Maybe Keith should call Hunk? Talking with someone might help. But maybe not Hunk. They could talk, sure, and it would be an enjoyable conversation, but if Keith tried to explain the anxiety he felt Hunk would only worry and probably tell Shiro. Pidge and Matt would do the same thing. Allura wouldn’t tell Shiro, but she would obsessively check up on him for the rest of his life and Keith wasn’t sure he was ready to commit to that yet.

 

Which left Lance. Out of all of Keith’s friends, Lance would probably understand the best. They both tried so hard to make it seem like they were okay, even if they weren’t. If Keith asked, Lance wouldn’t tell Shiro.

 

Keith started another cup of tea and texted Lance.

 

Five minutes later he sat down on the couch again, fresh tea in one hand and Facetime open on his phone in the other.

 

Lance launched into a blow-by-blow of his Christmas and everything else he’d done that break, seemingly happy just to have someone sit there and listen to him talk. Given half a chance, Lance would talk all day.

 

His chatter filled the apartment in a way TV and music never could, and Keith relaxed into the couch more, sipping at his tea.

 

“I think that’s literally everything I’ve done since I came home,” Lance said. “So what about you? What have you been up to?”

 

Keith shrugged. “Same old, same old.”

 

“Oh! How did you do in English? I got a C minus. Haxus is like the devil, I swear.”

 

“He definitely is. I got a C too.”

 

“Oh, good. I don’t feel like a complete moron then. How badly did that hurt your GPA?”

 

“It certainly didn’t do it any favors. I get anything less than an A this semester I’m in trouble.”

 

Lance winced. “Did you ever go to the Dean to get that stupid late mark fixed?”

 

Keith twisted his face.

 

“You didn’t, did you? Why the hell not?”

 

Keith shrugged. “I thought it’d be fine.”

 

“Go to him now. Make him overrule it.”

 

“It’s a little late, grades are already in.” He sipped the last of his tea and put the empty mug down.

 

“He’s the dean he can make it happen,” Lance said.

 

“Yeah, well, the whole college is shut down this week anyway so it doesn’t matter,” Keith said.

 

“Then call him the second he’s back,” Lance said. “At the very least go talk to the scholarship people and explain what happened.”

 

That wasn’t actually the worst idea in the world. “Maybe.”

 

“I _will_ drag you there myself,” Lance said.

 

“Okay, okay. I’ll go. I didn’t call you for a lecture, you know.”

 

“Why did you call?” Lance asked. “Not that I’m complaining, it’s just out of character for our emo lone wolf.”

 

Keith stiffened before forcing his body to relax again. “Just bored. Shiro’s been gone all day.”

 

“Ah. Gotcha.” From the look on Lance’s face and the way his eyes started roving over the screen, Keith assumed he got a lot more than Keith had actually said. “Did I tell my genius idea about what we should all do when we’re back?”

 

Keith shook his head, and Lance started detailing a mock bake-off based off some show he’d been watching on Netflix. Hunk would judge their pathetic attempts, which Keith thought was a cruel form of torture on multiple levels for multiple people.

 

Lance segued from that conversation to another cooking show his mom had been watching, and their talk continued to snowball from there until Shiro came back with the promised bag of Chinese food.

 

Keith ended the call with Lance and found they’d been talking for two and a half hours. He’d have to thank Lance later for talking that long with him.

 

Shiro spread the food over the coffee table, and Keith picked up his sweet and sour chicken. “I’m gonna grab something to drink, you want anything?” Shiro asked.

 

“Just water.” Had he had any regular water yet today? He only remembered drinking tea. There had to have been a few glasses in there somewhere…

 

“Did you make a cake?” Shiro called from the kitchen.

 

“Um…yes. I was bored.”

 

Shiro came back in, shaking his head. “Thanks, I guess. Makes a double-shift day worth it.”

 

Keith grinned and queued up a James Bond movie. They got through two that night before Shiro called it a night and trudged off to bed, leaving Keith to clean up. It was mainly silverware and a few plates from the cake, which they’d eaten half of and had no regrets about.

 

Then Keith went to bed, deliberately playing over the long talk with Lance in his mind. His plan was that if he focused hard enough on something else before falling asleep, it might keep the nightmare away.

 

All he accomplished was seeing Lance in his father’s place instead.

 

He woke with a scream buried deep in his chest, and he slapped a hand over his mouth to keep it there.

 

 _Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit_. And he couldn’t just go barge into Lance’s room and make sure he’s alright like he did with Shiro last night.

 

He reached for his phone instead. The first call went to voicemail. So did the second one. The third one was answered with a mumbled “What.”

 

“Lance? Are you okay?”

 

“Am I…you woke me up, no. Who is this anyway?” He was less sleepy, but definitely more grumpy.

Keith could imagine Lance blindly reaching for his phone and answering without even checking who it was.

 

“It’s Keith. Sorry, I just…nightmare, about you, I needed to make sure you were okay.”

 

Hopefully Lance was too sleep deprived to remember any of this.

 

“Well I’m fine. But it sounds like you’re not if you’re having nightmares,” Lance stated.

 

“Don’t worry about me, I’m used to it. Sorry, I’ll let you get back to sleep.” Keith didn’t wait for Lance’s response to that, hanging up and dropping the phone on his bed.

 

God he needed to get these nightmares under control. They only seemed to be getting worse, even though his accident had been almost three months ago. On the other hand, the anniversary of his parents’ accident was coming up. His subconscious must have latched on to that.

 

Lance tried calling him back. Keith rejected the call.

 

He switched on his desk light and grabbed his sketchbook again. It would be another long night.

 

The rest of the week followed the same pattern, and before Keith realized it he’d fallen into a routine. He’d sleep around five hours, wake up from a nightmare, grab his sketchbook. If Shiro featured in the dream, Keith would creep over into Shiro’s room and listen to him breathing for a while. He hadn’t dreamed about Lance again, and he didn’t know what he’d do if he did.

 

It was a bad habit, especially with the new semester coming up. Five hours wasn’t a terrible amount of time to sleep every night, especially with a nap somewhere in the day, but he wasn’t guaranteed time for a nap once classes started.

 

If the nightmares didn’t go away on their own and this next week continued like the last, Keith was going to have to find a professional to talk to. He hated the very idea, but he was at his wits end.

 

One good thing did happen that week, though.

 

Rolo finally brought his bike over.

 

Keith didn’t even care if it was only twenty degrees out. He layered up and took it for a short drive anyway.

 

The dents had been smoothed out, the mud wiped away. If Keith didn’t know this was his bike, he’d never know it flipped over a guardrail and tumbled down a hill.

 

It helped Keith feel a little more like his old self. The others returning from break helped too. They played Mario Party and nearly killed each other over it, and Keith hadn’t had this much in weeks.

 

The nightmares didn’t go away.

 

Keith curled up on the floor next to Shiro’s bed, knees to his chest and head in his arms, choking on sobs. It was bad enough the accident actually happened to his parents. But to see his friends in their places? To imagine losing Shiro in a horrific way like that? It was downright cruel. And he didn’t know how make it stop.

 

“What’re you doing down there?” Shiro slurred.

 

A heavy hand plopped on Keith’s head, patting him almost like a dog. Keith sniffled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

 

“Are you crying?” Shiro asked, much more awake now.

 

There were several things Keith could do here, most of which involved him leaving the room immediately. What he did instead was leap up and bury himself in Shiro’s chest, crying harder and knocking Shiro flat on his back.

 

“Whoa, hey, what’s going on?” Shiro did his best to hug Keith with his one arm while still trying to get a look at Keith’s face.

 

That was the last thing Keith wanted Shiro to see, so he hid it in Shiro’s shirt more.

 

“Keith, buddy, what happened?”

 

“I’m sorry, I’ll be fine in a minute, just…let me have this for a minute,” Keith said. He would absolutely leave then. It was mortifying enough that he’d come running to Shiro because of a bad dream. He wasn’t going to make it worse by staying here all night.

 

“Take all the time you need,” Shiro said, running his hand up and down Keith’s back. “I’ve got you.”

 

Keith clung to him harder.

 

The last time Keith had cried like this he’d been seventeen and Shiro had just caught him trying to run away from the Shiroganes. He’d pressed Keith for why, gentle and soothing the whole time, and Keith had come undone and explained how he couldn’t face turning eighteen and dealing with the Shiroganes kicking him out because he was of age now and they didn’t have to keep a roof over his head anymore. They were too nice; Keith couldn’t stand to see their image ruined in his memories when he looked back on them. And he’d sobbed, realizing they were the nicest family he’d ever had and he didn’t actually want to leave. He’d gotten attached and he didn’t know what to do.

 

They officially adopted him a month later, and he’d sobbed again because there was finally a family that _wanted_ him. He took their last name because he wanted to be one of them so badly. And they treated him like he’d been there his whole life.

 

That was three years ago now. Keith didn’t cry easily. But when he did, his family always seemed to be involved somehow.

 

Just like all those other times, Shiro rubbed soothing circles on his back and kept whispering it was okay, Keith was safe. Keith clung on to those words as hard as he clung onto Shiro until his sobs died down into hiccups.

 

Shiro waited until even the hiccups were mostly gone before asking again, “What happened?”

 

Keith sniffed. He’d all but ruined Shiro’s shirt at this point. “Nightmare.”

 

“Been getting a lot of those, huh?” Shiro asked. He kept rubbing Keith’s back.

 

Keith was curled up on Shiro’s chest, legs tucked against Shiro on the bed. The position made him feel like a little kid, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.

 

“You want to talk about it?” Shiro offered. “Telling someone helps.”

 

Keith shook his head. How was he supposed to tell Shiro that he kept imagining him dead in place of his father?

 

“How long have they been happening?” Shiro asked.

 

“Before Thanksgiving. It’s why my grades slipped,” Keith admitted.

 

He felt Shiro stiffen under him before relaxing again.

 

“They weren’t this bad then,” Keith insisted. “Or as often.”

 

“So they’re getting worse?” Shiro’s hand on Keith’s back kept up a forced rhythm.

 

Keith nodded.

 

“Would you be willing to look into a counselor?” His voice was soft and careful. “I hate seeing what it’s doing to you.”

 

Keith’s instinct was to say no, but then he reminded himself he was considering it on his own anyway. “I’ll do it,” Keith said. “I just want them to stop.”

 

Shiro hugged him, his one arm tightening around Keith’s back. “Thank you. We’ll look around tomorrow, okay?”

 

Keith nodded again. He slid off Shiro’s chest, but Shiro grabbed him before he could slide off the bed, too.

 

“Stay here for the rest of the night. There’s room.”

 

That wasn’t necessarily the case. Shiro had a queen size, but that was because he genuinely needed the room to sprawl out with his big frame. But Keith was good at fitting into whatever space he had, so it worked with the two of them.

 

He only hoped whatever girlfriend Shiro eventually had was able to do the same.

 

Sleep didn’t come easily for either of them. Keith was only managing a light doze by the time Shiro’s alarm went off, and by the way Shiro grumbled and groped for his phone, it didn’t seem like he’d been any better off.

 

Shiro turned it off and then pulled the covers over his head.

 

“You’re not getting up?” Keith asked.

 

“Screw the gym,” Shiro muttered. He was already half asleep again.

 

Keith grinned and burrowed more into the warmth. He fell asleep quickly after that.

 

Later that day, after they finally ventured out from the warm blankets and braved their cold apartment, Shiro proved he was scarily good at finding a counselor for Keith to talk to.

 

Considering Shiro majored in psych and was in grad school for his doctorate, it shouldn’t have been so surprising that he was able to book an appointment for Keith the next week.

 

The time until then passed much the same. Keith spent his time drawing and helping Rolo out at the parlor, now that he had a way to get there on his own. When he woke up from nightmares, he crawled into Shiro’s bed.

 

It helped, going to sleep and knowing there was someone he could go to for comfort later if he needed it. There were even a few nights he made it all the way until morning.

 

Classes started up again, and everyone returned and flooded the apartment with sound once more. He hadn’t realized he’d missed the chaos so much, but stepping around bodies and tuning out conversations he wasn’t part of had at some point become normal.

 

Lance constantly checking on him was new, but Keith was saved from an interrogation by simply stating he already had an appointment with a therapist.

 

Lance smiled at that. “Good. I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself.”

 

Keith rolled his eyes. He didn’t get why people were so surprised. It wasn’t like he _wanted_ to relive the accident over and over.

 

A day before the appointment, Lance had another surprise in store for him.

 

“Where are we going?” Keith demanded, again. They were taking the same gen ed sociology class, and after the first class Lance had said he wanted to take Keith somewhere. So they bundled up and Keith followed Lance out the door and across campus to the administration buildings.

 

What Lance could possibly want over there, Keith hadn’t the faintest idea.

 

But when Lance stopped in front of the Financial Aid building, Keith felt a rock lodge itself into his stomach and sink to his feet.

 

Lance turned back around to face Keith. “Okay. I know you want to deal with this by yourself, but you cannot survive another semester as stressed out as you were last semester. I figured out Elysa Bailey is in charge of scholarships, and I booked a meeting for you.”

 

The rock doubled in size. “Why?” He didn’t mean for it to come out like a whine, but he was pretty sure it did.

 

“Because the only way you let us help you seems to be if we shove our care and affection down your throat,” Lance stated, crossing his arms. “Go explain to Elysa what happened last semester and ask if they can go easy on your GPA.”

 

“Lance, I’m not going to beg for an exception-”

 

“Uh-ba-bap-bap,” Lance interjected, shaking a finger in Keith’s face. “Your GPA wouldn’t even be in trouble if Haxus wasn’t the worst person to ever walk this Earth, so it’s only fair if you get some extra help from them now. Your meeting is in, like, two minutes, so go!”

 

Lance grabbed Keith’s shoulder and shoved him through the door. Keith stumbled over the threshold and came face to face with a student receptionist.

 

“Uh…” This was a terrible idea. Why would they make an exception for Keith’s GPA? What made him special?

 

Lance sighed and followed him in. “He’s here to see Elysa Bailey? Two thirty?”

 

The student nodded. “Up the stairs, third door on the left.”

 

“Thank you,” Lance said. He gave Keith another push. “Look, the worst she can do is say no, right? And if that’s the case, then nothing’s changed. But she might agree to look the other way this semester, and then you won’t have to stress about this on top of all the other crap you’ve got going on right now.”

 

That…did sound appealing, Keith had to admit. He really hadn’t been looking forward to an entire semester of perfect grades and endless studying, especially with his nightmares getting worse.

 

“Okay, I’ll talk to her,” Keith said.

 

Lance smiled. “Thank you. I’ll wait down here for you, okay?”

 

Keith nodded and finally went up the steps and down the hall. It was a small building, made from an old house the school had renovated. The floor creaked as he walked.

 

The door to Elysa’s office was open, and she sat at her desk writing something in a file.

 

He knocked on the door.

 

Elysa looked up and smiled. “You must be Keith, right? Come in, sit down.”

 

She was younger than Keith had been expecting, maybe late thirties, with curly dark brown hair and brown skin. She wore a thick white turtle neck and a large teal necklace, her nails painted a matching teal. Her office was messy, but in an organized chaos kind of way, with stacks of paper on every available surface and more than one Starbucks cup on a shelf.

 

Keith took a seat in one of the chairs in front of her desk, unexpectedly sinking farther than he’d thought and flailing to readjust.

 

Elysa paid no mind and pulled a file off of one of the piles and set it in front of her. “So, I’m assuming you want to talk because of your GPA, right?”

 

“Um, yeah.”

 

“Well, you should know that the Scholarship board won’t even be looking at them until the end of this semester, so you have time to get your grades up. And if you don’t, we’d give you a warning and you’d have the fall semester to try and do better. So you don’t need to panic about it.”

 

That was one weight off his shoulder.

 

“Thank you. My friend wanted me to explain what happened last semester but I guess I don’t need to.” If he had this semester _and_ next semester, he could get his grades up no problem.

 

Elysa raised a brow and shook her head. “Students party and misjudge time for homework or studying all the time. It’s not the end of the world.”

 

Keith shifted in his chair. “I wasn’t partying, I was in an accident around midterms and when I applied for an extension on a paper, because it didn’t go through right away my paper was still counted as late.”

 

Elysa’s smile slid off her face and she stared at Keith. She looked downright horrified. “What teacher did that?”

 

“Uh, Professor Haxus.”

 

She groaned and rolled her eyes. “Haxus, I should have guessed.” She shook her head and leaned back in her chair. “How long were you out because of the accident?”

 

“A week.”

 

“And you said this was around midterms?” she asked. She leaned forward again and reached for a  pen and her sticky pad, scribbling something down.

 

“The week of midterms, actually.”

 

She nodded and kept writing. “You were on medication afterwards too, I’m assuming?”

 

“Yeah, for a month or so. I had a twisted knee and a broken arm.”

 

She peeled off the sticky, slapped it on his file, and then started writing on another one. “We will definitely take that into consideration when we review your file,” she said. “And I am going to have to have words with Professor Haxus _again_. I swear he pulls this every year somehow.”

 

In a way, it was nice to know Haxus did this to everyone and didn’t simply hate Keith.

 

“I wish you’d talked to us about your late paper last semester; I might have been able to get it changed before final grades went in. Now there’s not much I can do about it,” Elysa said.

 

Keith just shrugged. He’d made his bed, he was prepared to lie in it.

 

“I’m glad you talked to me now, at least. Knowing there were extenuating circumstances last semester will probably mean we don’t put your scholarship on probation next year, even if you don’t pull your GPA up. But that doesn’t mean you can slack off this semester.”

 

Keith smiled. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

She smiled back. “I’ll be in touch if there’s anything else I need to know. And if you need anything, you know where to find me.”

 

“Thank you.” When he stood up, it felt like he left the rock behind. He went to meet Lance, already planning how he was going to thank him for dragging Keith there.

 

Now all he had to do was get through his appointment tomorrow and he’d be golden.

 

He was grateful all of his classes the next day were still easing into the semester. His art classes worked on basics so the professor could see where everyone was and start seeing what everyone’s style was. His one business class was a lecture off of a power point.

 

Before he knew it, he was standing outside the therapist’s door, taking deep breaths and reminding himself this was what he wanted.

 

The door opened before he could knock, and the woman on the other side looked just as surprised as Keith did. She was tall, almost as tall as Shiro, with golden brown skin and wavy brown hair. She wore teal button up and black slacks, and Keith did a double take at the converse shoes on her feet.

 

She grinned. “I’m going to guess you’re my four o’clock, right?”

 

Keith nodded.

 

“Great! Go ahead and get comfortable on one of the couches. I need to run to the bathroom, but I’ll be right back. Oh, and you can call me Romelle.”

 

“Okay.”

 

She grinned and waved, stepping past him and speed walking down the hall. Keith let himself in and shrugged off his coat.

 

Romelle’s office was nothing like Elysia or any professor’s office he’d been in, which made sense. It was twice as large, with half of the space taken up by two short couches and a coffee table. Bookcases lined the room, and while half looked like psychology books the other half were novels. Keith browsed through the titles, coat on the back of a couch.

 

“Do you like to read?” Romelle asked, coming back into the room and shutting the door behind her. She went over to her desk and shuffled some papers around.

 

Keith shrugged. “Every now and then. Don’t really have time.”

 

“You’re still in school, right?” she asked. She picked up a spiral bound notebook and walked over to the couches.

 

“Yeah. Sophomore year.”

 

She nodded. “I remember those days. Barely had time to eat, let alone read.” She took a seat and opened the notebook. “What are you majoring in?”

 

“Art and business.”

 

The small talk continued for another ten minutes. She made notes on his answers, but she never asked him to sit down. She also offered a few funny stories from her own undergrad days, and Keith found himself relaxing with the humor.

 

Eventually, she got down to why he was there. “Alright, so, I think it was your brother who called to set this up?”

 

Keith nodded.

 

“He said you were having nightmares?”

 

“Yeah.” He explained his accident in the fall and how it had been similar to one when he was a kid, but that the nightmares were getting worse now instead of better.

 

“Well that’s certainly no fun. How often do you have them in a week, on average?”

 

“At least three or four.”

 

“We are certainly going to have to fix that, aren’t we?” Romelle said. “Do you feel comfortable describing the nightmares to me?”

 

He hesitated with his response. He’d known that was coming; she couldn’t help him through it if she didn’t know, but admitting what he was seeing felt like a betrayal of sorts. They were his dreams, but he never wanted that to happen to his friends.

 

“We don’t have to discuss it today,” Romelle said. “I know it’s asking a lot. Why don’t you tell me more about your semester after the accident? Recovery must have been hard.”

 

He snorted. “Understatement.” He finally sat down on the couch and outlined the hell that was navigating his campus on crutches with one arm.

 

Romelle listened patiently, asking for more details here and there. “That was a lot to go through in one semester. Is the scar on your forehead from the accident?”

 

Keith fingered the mark through his eyebrow. “Yeah. It’s funny, actually. My dad had a scar just like this.”

 

She widened her eyes slightly. “Really?”

 

Keith nodded. It was one of the few things he remembered about his dad.

 

“So it doesn’t bother you then?”

 

Keith shook his head. “I’ve never been one for appearances, and I forget about it half the time.” He’d spent half of his teenage years with a black eye; a cut that did not affect his daily life in the slightest was a cake walk.

 

“That’s good. Were you close with your father before the accident?”

 

Keith tensed up again. Somehow, he hadn’t prepared himself to actually talk about his parents, not like this. The accident, sure, that was obviously going to come up. Life before the accident? It never seemed important. Not anymore.

 

“Hit a nerve, didn’t I?” Romelle asked.

 

“I just…I don’t talk about them a lot.”

 

“Can I ask why?” The notebook lay on the couch next to her, forgotten.

 

He shrugged. “They died a long time ago. What’s the point?” Talking wouldn’t bring them back.

 

“Were you angry when they died?”

 

Keith crossed his arms, hiding his fists. “Of course I was. It stupid, how they died. If one of them had had a cell phone back then, they’d probably still be alive. No, they’d definitely be alive. We could have called for help when we crashed instead of sitting there trapped and bleeding to death.”

 

It was more than he’d said about the accident to anyone in a long time. Shiro didn’t even know the whole story. He wasn’t sure anyone but his first social worker did.

 

“You’re saying ‘we’ a lot, does that mean you were in the crash with your parents? Just so I’m clear on what happened.”

 

“Yeah, I was,” Keith said. And then for some reason he went on to describe the crash in detail, from the moment they hit the black ice to when they wrapped around a tree, and the desperate hours after that trying to break out and get help, with no luck.

 

She was silent through the whole thing, not asking a single question, just letting him rant and get it all off his chest.

 

“And as if once wasn’t bad enough, now I’m reliving it as a nightmare, and my friends keep taking the place of my parents. And I don’t understand _why_ ,” Keith said, his voice breaking on the last word.

 

Romelle pushed a box of tissues closer to him. “We’re going to figure out the why together,” she promised. “Can you trust me to help?”

 

The question caught Keith off guard long enough for him to wrap all his emotions back up. “I mean, I guess?”

 

“I’m going to need a little more than a guess. This is some big stuff, stuff you haven’t told anyone else before. You don’t want to go sharing that with just anyone.”

 

“I feel like you should have given me that warning before I spent the last ten minutes ranting to you.”

 

She grinned. “You were on a roll, I didn’t want to ruin it.”

 

He grinned back. “Well, we got this far. Might as well keep going.”

 

Her grin widened. “Thank you, Keith. That means a lot to me. Now, unfortunately, we’re not going to work through this in only a day, so I’m going to have to ask you come back. Can you fit me in once a week in your schedule?”

 

“Yeah, I can do that.”

 

“Great. Kelly will work out the details with you on your way out. Is there anything else you want to talk about? Any questions for me?”

 

“Not right now,” Keith said. The possibility of leaving was too strong for him to worry about what questions he could have, and he was eager to bolt out the door.

 

“Alright, then I’ll see you next week, okay?”

 

“Yeah, see you then.”

 

She walked him out the door, and he went down to make the follow up appointments and then head home.

 

Shiro was waiting for him as soon as Keith opened the door. If Keith hadn’t had his own mode of transportation, Shiro would have insisted on driving him. Even if it was winter and Keith couldn’t feel his fingers, he would take his motorcycle over a car any day.

 

“How’d it go?” Shiro asked.

 

“Really well,” Keith said. “I’m going to go once a week for a while.”

 

“Great!” Shiro said. “I’m proud of you for doing this.”

 

It didn’t feel like something to be proud of. Part of Keith felt weak for even needing to go in the first place, but he was desperate for the nightmares to stop. And he liked Romelle, so if she could make them stop, he was willing to push his pride aside for a few weeks.

 

They pushed off homework that night in favor of another movie night, and Keith wasn’t all that surprised to have another horrible nightmare that night. Disappointed, but not surprised.

 

The next week was business as usual, until Keith’s Figure drawing class.

 

“We’re going to do faces today. We’ll start with a quick sketch from memory, just for a warm up. So think of someone you know really well. Mom or Dad are great choices, maybe a sibling or a significant other. Doesn’t matter. Pick someone and go for it. Let’s draw for…eight minutes. Go!” Professor Plaxum said.

 

Keith lifted his pencil to the easel and froze, torn between who to draw. For as long as he’d been a Shirogane, he’d still never come to think of the Mr. and Mrs. as his parents. But when he tried to call up his birth parents, the only clear image he could conjure was of them during the accident. He could see his mom in the kitchen, towering over him, but her face was a blur. And in any memory he had of his father, his face was transposed with his bloody corpse.

 

His hand shook, making wobbly lines on his paper.

 

He couldn’t remember his parents’ faces. He barely had any memories left from before the accident, and he’d worked so hard on repressing them for so long…now he couldn’t remember them at all.

 

“Hey, are you okay?” the girl next to him asked.

 

He swallowed. Lifted his hand from the easel. Took a deep breath and shut his eyes. Art class was not the place to deal with this. He had an appointment with Romelle later, he’d deal with it then. He could hold it together that long. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

 

He put his pencil back on the paper and drew a very rushed, very terrible sketch of Shiro in the time he had left.

 

Plaxum walked called time and started walking around. “Alright, not bad for warm up sketches.” She paused behind Keith briefly, but said nothing before continuing on. “Next you’re going to turn to the person next to you, and you’re going to draw them.”

 

There was a deliberateness in Keith’s actions, not only during the rest of class but throughout the rest of the day. It felt like he was unraveling, liable to fall apart at any moment if he let his guard down.

 

He’d forgotten what his parents actually looked like. What the hell was wrong with him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I've never been to therapy or personally talked to people about it, so I apologize profusely if this reads as terribly inaccurate. Feel free to let me know if it is and I'll see if I can edit it.
> 
> And in regards to the poll last chapter, majority of you asked me to keep it platonic, so platonic it will be :)   
> Thanks for your input!


	4. Soaring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Self discovery sometimes comes with some bad decisions. Especially if you're Keith and have zero impulse control.

He sat across from Romelle on the edge of the couch, arms draped over his knees. He’d been there for five minutes now, and other than saying hello they hadn’t spoken.

 

“You seem a little distressed,” Romelle finally said. “Did something happen?”

 

“No…not exactly? I just…I realized something today.” He took a measured breath.

 

Romelle waited for him to continue.

 

He appreciated the chance to figure out the words. “In art class, the professor asked us to draw our parents from memory. And when I thought of mine, the only way I could remember their faces was during the accident.”

 

He clenched his fists when his vision blurred. “I can’t remember what they looked like.”

 

“You never had pictures or videos?” Romelle asked.

 

Keith shook his head. “I bounced around the system too much for any of that stuff.” Most of his belongings throughout his life fit into a backpack.

 

“That’s awful,” Romelle said. “I can’t even imagine what that must feel like.”

 

Keith couldn’t describe it even if he wanted to. He was angry that he’d let this happen, heartbroken at the thought of forgetting his parents, and terrified that one day he might not remember them at all. And he was guilty, so incredibly guilty.

 

“I spent so long trying not to think about them, I guess it only makes sense.” He kept his gaze on the coffee table. “Maybe that’s why I’m having nightmares, too. My subconscious realized I was forgetting them.”

 

“That could very well be,” Romelle said. “Dreams are a funny thing. It could very well be a part of your conscience trying to hold on to whatever it can of your parents.”

 

Keith released his fists. “Just sucks that’s my only clear memory of them.”

 

Romelle huffed a small laugh and smiled. “Yeah, I can’t say I’d want to be in your place right now. But I want to try an exercise with you, if you don’t mind.” She ripped out some of the pages from her notebook and hand slid them across the coffee table to Keith, and then she handed him the pen. “I want you to write down everything you can remember of your parents. What they liked to eat, any games they used to play with you, favorite movies, hobbies, everything.”

 

Keith took up the pen. He took a few minutes to get started, and then he couldn’t write fast enough, filling up two entire pages. One hazy memory followed after another, creating a grainy picture in his mind of what his toddler years were like.

 

Romelle stayed still and silent while he worked, and he almost forgot about her. When he finished up the back of the second page, she finally spoke again. “See, you remember more about them than you thought.”

 

He smiled softly down at the page. “Yeah. I still can’t picture them very well, though.”

 

“When it’s been a long time since you’ve seen someone, that does happen. And it’s sad, no matter who the person was or how important to you they were.”

 

“There’s nothing I can do to get it back?” He wasn’t sure if he believed in anything like hypnotism, but he was open to trying it.

 

“No scientifically proven way,” Romelle said. “There’s still a lot about the mind we don’t understand. Long term memory storage is one of them.”

 

“Oh.” The disappointment was heavy in his voice.

 

“But you can keep adding on to that list,” Romelle said. “Maybe even try sketching your parents if you want, or your old house. There might be even more you remember if you let yourself think about it.”

 

That was the key, wasn’t it? Keith was going to have to let himself think about it, for the first time in years.

 

“Well, I’d say that’s a good stopping point for today,” Romelle said.

 

Keith nodded. “I can take these, right?” He ran his fingers over the list he’d made.

 

Romelle smiled. “I insist you do.”

 

Keith carefully folded them and fit them into the inner pocket of his jacket before leaving. His head still felt like a mess, but at least now it felt like he had a broom to sweep it all up with.

 

Hunk and Shiro were the only ones at the apartment when Keith got there, and something smelled delicious in the kitchen.

 

He put his bag down by the table and walked into the kitchen, sniffing the air like a dog. “I love when you come over.”

 

Hunk laughed. “I bet you do. How’d your session go?”

 

“Good, really good. Felt like we were really getting somewhere.”

 

“You seem like you’re in a better headspace than earlier,” Hunk said. He stirred something in a pot and glanced over at where Shiro was dutifully cutting vegetables. “Smaller, man, so people can actually eat them.”

 

Shiro grumbled about bite size being a relative term.

 

“Definitely in a better headspace,” Keith agreed. Then he frowned. “Wait, I didn’t see today?” He was pretty sure he didn’t have any classes with Hunk. He would have remembered that.

 

“Yeah, I noticed,” Hunk said. “I walked next to you from the business building to commons right before lunch.”

 

Keith winced. “I didn’t acknowledge you at all?”

 

“Nope. You were really lost in thought. Didn’t even look up when I waved my hand in front of your face, which I thought was impressive.” He picked up a dark spice and sprinkled it generously into the pot.

 

“Sorry.”

 

“No worries, as long as you’re better now,” Hunk said.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“So what was up with you?” Shiro asked. “Were you just worried about your session with Dr. Romelle?”

 

“Not really.” Keith searched in the fridge for something to drink, settling on an iced tea. “I realized in art class that I can’t remember what my birth parents looked like, and it threw me out of sorts all day.”

 

“Yikes, that’d freak me out, too,” Hunk said.

 

“But Dr. Romelle was able to help?” Shiro pushed.

 

Keith nodded and twisted off the iced tea cap. “I still can’t remember what they looked like, but she had me write down everything else I can remember about them. That helped.”

 

“That really sucks, man,” Hunk said. “You don’t have any pictures?”

 

Keith shook his head. “I moved around too much.”

 

Shiro furrowed his brow. “I thought that was what was in that one box.”

 

Keith froze, iced tea halfway to his mouth. “What box?”

 

“That white one you had when you first moved in.”

 

First moved in? Keith had to think back. “Oh, no that was just stuff for my file for my foster parents.” He’d had to carry it between every foster home. A few times he’d tried to leave it behind, but it always ended up his new home sooner or later.

 

Shiro looked over at him. “Nooo, Dad had your file in his office. And it’s not like your file would need an entire box.”

 

Keith blinked at him. The first time he’d seen the box, the social worker had said it was everything about Keith. What else would it be if not for his file? “If it’s not my files, then what the hell is in that box?”

 

Shiro shrugged. “I always assumed it was books or toys or something, stuff that didn’t fit in your backpack.”

 

Keith continued to stare at him.

 

“You mean to tell me that the in the ten years you spent in foster care you never opened that box?” Shiro asked.

 

“No? It never seemed important?” Keith said. He’d been quick to write it off as ‘Do Not Open’ and had left it at that.

 

“Well where’s the box now?” Hunk asked. “And I need those veggies, Shiro, keep chopping.”

 

Shiro jumped and turned back to the cutting board.

 

“I think I put that box in my closet?” Keith said. He had a vague memory of shoving it on the top shelf and proceeding to ignore it, like he’d done in every house he’d stayed in. And there the box had remained for four years now.

 

“We could call Mom and Dad and ask them to look in the box,” Shiro offered. “Just so we know what’s in it.”

 

“No, that’s alright. I’ll just go this weekend,” Keith said. He’d leave after classes the next day. He didn’t have that much homework, and he could be back by Sunday to still work at the parlor with Rolo. It was fine.

 

The fact he couldn’t leave for almost twenty-four hours was less fine. He slept like a log that night, but then he was jittery when he woke up. And the jitters didn’t go away all day.

 

What the hell was in that box? Did it have pictures of his parents?

 

By noon, he’d had it. He texted Lance and asked him to cover for him for their sociology class, and then he hopped on his motorcycle and drove. It was a two hour drive, and no one was home when he got there. That was just fine with him.

 

He made a beeline for his room and tossed his jacket and helmet on his bed, slid open his closet door and pulled the box down. The lid was covered in a thick layer of dust, but it wasn’t that heavy.

 

He plopped it down on his floor and swallowed. Why were his hands shaking? He just needed to open the box and find out. Either pictures of his parents were in there, or they weren’t.

 

But what would he do if they weren’t? This was his one and only chance to remind himself what they looked like. There was no plan B.

 

It was his own Schrodinger’s Box, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to find out what it really held.

 

Funny, two days ago he couldn’t have cared less about this box. Now he was too scared to even open it. 

 

He took a deep breath. Rip off the bandaid, just open the box. He could do it. He could face whatever was in the box. Files would be disappointing, but it was what he’d thought was in here for years. Pictures…pictures could change everything. Pictures could give back something he was starting to realize was lost to him. Pictures could give him his parents back.

 

He wasn’t sure what he’d do if the box did contain pictures. He’d been denying his parents for so long, was he even ready to let them back into his life? Finally acknowledge all the hurt and grief they’d left him with?

 

Now he was overthinking it. He was never going to open it now.

 

No, this was stupid. It was a _box_. He could open it. It wasn’t a big deal.

 

Except it totally was and now that he was here he wasn’t sure he was ready.

 

But he’d driven two hours and skipped a class in the second week of school for _the sole purpose_ of opening this box. He had to open it.

 

Didn’t he?

 

His thoughts continued to spiral like this he didn’t know how long, until Mrs. Shirogane walked in and leaned against his doorway.

 

“Didn’t expect to see you today,” she said. “What’s the occasion?”

 

“Um, I need to see what’s in this box,” Keith said.

 

She narrowed her eyes. “Okay…you’re going to need to help me out a little more here. I still don’t understand.”

 

“It might be my parents,” Keith whispered, turning his gaze back to the box.

 

“What do you mean your parents?” she asked.

 

He should have guessed she wouldn’t understand. Foster parents always got offended when he brought up his real parents.

 

“Keith, honey,” she said, coming in and kneeling next to him. “I’m trying here. You want to open the box, okay, we’ll open the box.”

 

She reached for it, and he panicked.

 

“No!” He slammed his hands on top of the box. A cloud of dust rose up into the air.

 

She blinked at him. “I thought you wanted to open it.”

 

“I do, but I can’t.” He wasn’t making sense. How could he make her understand?

 

She nodded once, slowly. “Does Shiro know you’re here, by any chance?”

 

“He knows I was planning on coming,” Keith said.

 

“Okay. I’m going to give him a call, alright?” She smiled and stood up again, walking out of his room.

 

She stayed in the hallway when she made the call.

 

“Hi, honey,” she said. “Do you know anything about a box that Keith wants to open?” It was silent for a few moments while Shiro talked. “No, he has it in front of him, but I think he’s scared to open it. Uh-huh. Oh, gotcha. That makes sense. Alright, I’ll see you later.”

 

She came back in. “Shiro will be here later. Want to help me make some cookies to welcome you boys?”

 

“Uh…” He looked down at the box.

 

Mrs. Shirogane waved her hand. “Let’s forget about the box for a while. You make better snickerdoodles than I do.”

 

He used the same exact recipe, so this was not true. But she hated how messy it was and Keith had never been afraid to get his hands dirty.

 

And, after she’d dragged him to the kitchen and they’d gotten started, he fell into the rhythm pretty easily. Working with his hands was good. He’d always found comfort in that. It helped ground him and get his head on straight again.

 

Mr. Shirogane was just as surprised to see him when he came home, but more than happy to swipe a freshly baked cookie. He didn’t ask questions either, simply happy to see Keith and to hear Shiro would be there later.

 

When Shiro did get there, with an extra bag of Keith’s clothes since Keith could not be responsible enough to grab them before he ran off that afternoon, they put on a movie and ate the cookies.

 

It wasn’t until bedtime the subject of the Box was even brought up, and only then because Keith froze in his doorway to stare at it.

 

Shiro came up behind him and waved their parents off. He steered Keith into the room and onto his bed. “Tell me what’s going through your head right now.”

 

Keith outlined his spiral of thoughts from earlier, gaze never leaving the box.

 

Shiro plopped a hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re scared. This is pretty huge for you. But the only way to get past this is to face it head on and open the box.”

 

“You’re just curious, too.”

 

“I am _dying_  to know what’s in that box. But I won’t look if you don’t want me to.”

 

“No, I…stay?”

 

Shiro smiled at him. “Always.”

 

Keith slid off the bed and onto his knees, hands shaking again as he reached for the box. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes.

 

In one motion, he wrapped his fingers around the lid and pulled.

 

Shiro nudged him with his foot. “Open your eyes, dummy.”

 

Keith resigned himself to disappointing manila folders and cracked open one eye.

 

A smiling hippo greeted him from the box.

 

He blinked and tilted his head. “Hippy?” He lifted the stuffed toy out of the box. Some of the fur was matted. An ear was torn in half, and one of the front legs had been sewn back on with thick black stitches.

 

He breathed a laugh and ran his fingers over the toy. “I used to refuse to go to sleep without him.”

 

He set it down gently on the floor and peered into the box. His breath caught in his throat.

 

There was an entire layer of pictures covering the bottom of the box. A frame stuck out against the side, and he lifted it out. The picture inside was of his family. A little toddler Keith sat on his father’s shoulders, grinning so wide he couldn’t even open his eyes. His dad had one hand on Keith’s leg, and another wrapped around his mother’s shoulders. They were standing next to a picnic table. Keith didn’t recognize where, and he had no idea what they’d been doing there.

 

A tear dropped onto the glass.

 

Those were his parents, alive and happy. He traced their faces with a finger, a sob building in the back of his throat.

 

Shiro had him wrapped in a hug in seconds. Keith didn’t bury his face in his brother’s shirt this time. He didn’t want to look away from the picture, wanted to memorize every detail and brand it on his eyes so he’d never forget again.

 

“You look a lot like your mom,” Shiro said.

 

“I miss them,” Keith said. “I miss them so much.” He didn’t know what they’d think of him now, if they’d be supportive of their gay artist son who’s great ambition was to own a tattoo shop one day.

 

And it was the fact that he didn’t know, would never know, that hurt like he was tumbling off his motorcycle all over again.

 

They went through more of the pictures, finding a lot from before Keith was born of his parents dating. They’d really like hiking, apparently, both in the mountains and in canyons out west. One picture was of Keith, barely two years old, having a staring contest with a lizard. He didn’t remember any hikes, and they’d migrated east by the time he was three.

 

His parents always looked happy. He always looked happy. These pictures were like looking into another world, and he couldn’t even imagine what his life would be like if he’d never lost them. How different would it have been?

 

His eyes didn’t dry all night, not until after he’d turned the lights off and held Hippy close, one hand resting on the framed picture of the three of them together.

 

Their deaths hurt more now than it had in a long time, but the wound didn’t feel as raw around the edges as it used to. These pictures, the memories, they were smoothing over that raw edge and patching up the hole, slowly but surely.

 

He dreamt of hiking up mountains and trips to the zoo.

 

In fact, he didn’t have the nightmare at all the following week.

 

That almost freaked him out more.

 

He put the pictures up all around his room, the framed one getting a spot of honor on his desk next to his bed. Pidge, Hunk, and Lance helped him make a collage of the smaller ones, and he hung it above his bed. This also included endless teasing that he’d had these pictures for over a decade and never known it.

 

Lance almost teased Keith about Hippy sitting on his pillow, but one of Keith’s more murderous glares shut that down immediately.

 

Romelle was happy that he’d found the pictures and not in the least surprised Keith was paranoid about the nightmares returning.

 

“It’s just too easy, you know?” Keith said.

 

“These nightmares have been plaguing you for a while, it makes sense you’re suspicious of a sudden lack of them,” she said. “Do you think maybe you’re more at peace with what happened?”

 

“At peace?” Keith repeated. ‘Keith’ and ‘peace’ were two words that were never in the same sentence together. “I’m still bitter that they died like that. And I’m pissed they’ll never know who I am now.”

 

Romelle nodded and he kept talking.

 

“Everyone likes to say they’re still with me, they’re watching me from above or whatever, but that’s not good enough. I don’t want them to just be spectators of my life, or some kind of creepy stalkers.” The thought they were watching him at all times was terrifying. He’d done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of that he never wanted them to know about.

 

“You’d rather be able to tell them yourself,” she said.

 

“Yeah, I guess. But that’s not freaking possible.”

 

“No, but it might help you if you wrote letters to them,” Romelle said. “Write down everything you’d want to tell them, everything you want them to know about you.”

 

Keith stared at her with narrowed eyes. “You really like having people write, don’t you?”

 

She laughed. “It is one of my preferred methods of treatment. It helps you organize your thoughts without necessarily telling anyone anything you don’t want to share. A lot of people like how much more private it is, and you seem like one of those types.”

 

Damn. She had him pegged.

 

“I’ll try it.”

 

“Good. Consider that you’re homework this week.”

 

“Like I don’t have enough of that already?” he complained. It was the third week of school. Training wheels were off, they were in full swing.

 

“Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “At least this won’t have to sound academic. You can curse and swear as much as you want. And there’s no word count.”

 

“I suppose that’s a relief.”

 

It should have been easy. That was all Keith could think of when he sat down to write it the next night. Hunk was making something in the kitchen, either dinner or a science project, no one was really sure, and Lance and Pidge were racing each other in Mario Kart.

 

Keith figured now was a good time to write it as any.

 

Except for the part where he felt like an idiot writing a letter he could never send. What was he going to do, mail it to the graveyard?

 

He straightened up.

 

Maybe he couldn’t send a letter to the graveyard, but there was no reason he couldn’t go to their graves himself and say what he wanted in person. People did that all the time, right? And he hadn’t been there since their funeral, it was way past time he visited.

 

He reached for his laptop. Finding where they were buried didn’t take nearly as long as he thought it would, but it was disheartening to realize the graveyard was eight hours away. It would need a lot more planning than rushing out the door right this minute, which was what he really wanted to do.

 

If he left really early in the morning, he could be there and back by tomorrow night. It wasn’t like he needed that long at their graves.

 

He could totally do this.

 

He texted Shiro, asking if he could borrow the car tomorrow. He might be insane enough to do a sixteen hour trip in one day, but he wasn’t quite crazy enough to attempt it on a motorcycle in late January.

 

“Aw hell yeah!” Lance said, jumping up from the couch. “Take that you little gremlin!”

 

“You pushed me off the couch, that doesn’t count! Rematch!”

 

“You’re on!” Lance sat back down.

 

Shiro texted back, saying he’d be holed up doing homework all day anyway, so the car wouldn’t be a problem. Keith smiled and closed his laptop. “I call winner.”

 

“Moron, it’s Mario Kart, just hurry up and grab another controller before we start,” Pidge stated.

 

Keith jumped over and joined in.

 

He meant to tell them about his plan. He really did. But after an intense night of Mario Kart and Just Dance, it slipped Keith’s mind before they left, and Shiro went to bed early. And then Keith couldn’t really sleep because he was too busy going over plans in his head and trying to memorize the directions, and he ended up leaving at three in the morning, and no one can be held accountable for remembering to write a note or text anyone at three in the morning.

 

It was a peaceful drive, all things considered. The roads were basically empty in the early morning, and he made it there in just over seven hours. He parked outside the cemetery, but he didn’t get out of his car yet.

 

He had a sinking feeling this was going to go a lot like the stupid box had last weekend. Only this time, there would be no Shiro to coax him through it.

 

He did need a bathroom, though, and he was hungry. So he drove over to a nearby café instead. He didn’t want to have any excuses to back out when he finally worked up his nerve.

 

He placed his order and took a seat, checking his phone in the meantime. There were sixty messages in the group chat, and a quick scan showed the majority of them were trying to figure out where the hell he was. It started out calmly enough, but the last hour had really started to turn into a panic, Shiro and Lance especially.

 

Hunk sent another message then: _Oh my god what if he crashed again it’s even colder out there now than it was in October_

 

 _Shit_ Keith hadn’t considered what everyone else would think.

 

Lance replied: _Why would you say that_ _Hunk whhhyyy_

Keith was quick to respond. _I’m fine!_

Pidge: _Oh thank Quiznak he’s not dead_

 

Shiro: _Where are you?_

Keith bit his lip. He didn’t want to explain it over text, but he had to tell them something. _I’m out of town. Be back late tonight._

Lance: _Out of twon wtf wht r u doing?_

Keith: _I’ll explain later, promise. Sorry for worrying everyone._

Allura: _You better be sorry young man Coran and I were ready to start a search party!_

Pidge: _WHY THE EVERLOVING FUCK ARE YOU IN NORTH CAROLINA RIGHT NOW_

 

Keith groaned and rested his head on the table. He should have known the gremlin would hack his phone.

 

The next several messages were various exclamations of surprise and yelling. Keith’s food came out, and he lifted his head off the table.

 

Keith: _Look, I’ll explain later. Turning notifications off now._

 

They were going to murder him for that, but at least he’d given them warning.

 

He was surprised he only got one separate text message, but not surprised it was from Shiro.

 

_Are you okay?_

Keith took a bite of his egg sandwich. _Yes. There was just something I needed to do._

_Okay. I trust you. Be safe._

 

And this was why Shiro was the best brother in the world.

 

He finished his breakfast and his coffee, but the thought of going to the cemetery dropped like a rock down to his stomach. It was ridiculous, their graves couldn’t hurt him, but it felt like he’d be facing his parents for the first time in thirteen years, and he’d be laying out all the good parts of him and all the bad. And there were a lot of bad parts of him that he wished weren’t there.

 

He just…wanted them to be proud of him.

 

He drove back to the cemetery and made it out of his car this time, but he didn’t go through the gates, not yet. A few other people milled about inside, standing over graves and laying flowers down. He tilted his head, thought _fuck it_ , and strode off down the road where some genius florist had set up shop.

 

He bought wildflowers, something bright and colorful, and stomped back to the cemetery. He didn’t remember where they were buried exactly, but there was a guard house or something set up just inside the gates, and they were able to tell him.

 

It didn’t take long enough for him to find their markers. Flat stones in the ground, letters curling into their names. Grass had spread over the edges of the markers, threatening to reclaim the space. Keith spent some time pulling it all back, brushing the dirt off and cleaning the stones as best he could with just his hands and coat sleeves.

 

“I’ll bring something to properly clean this next time,” he promised. He finally found the vase in the ground for the flowers, and he slipped the wildflowers in there. “I know it’s been a long time. I don’t know if you’d even recognize me if you could see me.”

 

He sat back on his heels. There wouldn’t be a response, he knew that. But it felt easy to talk to them like this, like they were actually listening to him. It felt like they were there, and his vision blurred with tears.

 

“For a while I didn’t even know if I would recognize you guys,” he admitted. “But I finally found all the pictures we used to have. I’m grateful for them. They reminded me about a lot of stuff I forgot. I was so angry with you both for a long time. I took it out on a lot of good people, too, but I think I’m finally starting to figure stuff out. I’ve got friends looking out for me now.”

 

He described all of them, leading into story after story. His face went numb from the cold and the wind, and he couldn’t feel his hands either, but he didn’t stop talking. Now that he was here he wanted to tell them everything. He didn’t want to leave.

 

It was weird. They were graves. His parents were nothing more than rotting corpses six feet under him, but it almost felt like he had them back, in a way. Not in the way he wanted, of course. But their graves were a physical place to connect them, something solid he could hold on to.

 

It was early afternoon before he felt ready to leave, and it was harder than he’d expected. He’d figured he’d run out of there first chance he had.

 

He stood and blew warm air onto his frozen fingers. “I’ll come back soon,” he promised. “Maybe when it’s a little warmer.”

 

It was the promise of heat and another coffee that convinced him to leave, and he went back to the coffee shop to warm up a little. When he got back in his car to start the drive home, exhaustion hit him like a freight train.

 

“Maybe I should have brought someone else with me,” he muttered, resting his head against the steering wheel. “Or not have left at three in the morning.” That would have been good, too.

 

It was probably a bad idea to drive when he was this tired. Shiro would be disappointed in him.

 

That thought was the only reason Keith climbed into the back seat for a quick power nap. He’d just had coffee, that’d kick in eventually and then he’d be ready to go. An hour at most, and he could still be back home by midnight. That wasn’t bad.

 

When Keith finally did wake up, groggy and disoriented, he had a sinking feeling he wasn’t going to like whatever time it was.

 

Five thirty-two.

 

“Damn it,” he muttered. He’d been hoping to be home by ten at the earliest. No way was that happening now.

 

He stay curled up in the back seat and called Shiro.

 

Shiro answered on the first ring. “Keith? You okay?”

 

“Why do you always assume I’m in trouble?” Keith grumbled. Seriously, a little faith would be nice.

 

“Right now it’s because I have no idea where you are and you sound like you’re drunk,” Shiro said.

 

“Not drunk. I just woke up.”

 

“That’s…better than drunk, I suppose, but still concerning,” Shiro said.

 

“Took a nap before getting back on the road, didn’t mean to sleep that long,” Keith said. “That’s why I’m calling, I’m probably not going to get in until two in the morning.” Because at this point he might as well grab something for dinner, which meant he wouldn’t be on the road until six at the earliest if he scarfed down his food.

 

“Are you seriously in North Carolina?” Shiro asked. “What possessed you to go there?”

 

“Wanted to visit my parents’ graves,” Keith finally admitted.

 

Shiro was quiet for a moment. “That makes sense. I would have gone with you.”

 

“I know. But I wanted to do the first trip alone. Plus you had homework.”

 

“I could have done it in the car or something.”

 

“Moot point right now,” Keith said.

 

“Yeah, yeah. Alright, I guess I’ll see you later. Wake me up when you get in, got it?”

 

“Don’t throw a pillow at me, then,” Keith retorted.

 

Shiro muttered how it was _one time_. “Anyway. Drive safe.”

 

“That’s why I napped. I’ll see you later.”

 

He was quick to hang up and run back inside the café for the third time that day. They were about to close, and the one barista looked at him funny, recognizing him from earlier, but he didn’t offer any answers as he ordered a sandwich to go and ran back out to the car. He waited to eat it until after he was on the highway, which would also get him Shiro’s Disappointed In your Life Decisions face, but Shiro never needed to know about this.

 

There was more traffic on the way home, but once ten o’clock hit the majority of it was gone and it was smooth sailing all the way back to the apartment.

 

Shiro was curled up under his comforter on the couch when Keith slipped in, and he lifted his head when the door closed.

 

Keith gave Shiro his own Disappointed face. “I would have come to your room.”

 

“Not taking any chances,” Shiro said. “Glad you’re back.”

 

“Yeah, now you can move to your bed,” Keith said. He offered a hand to help Shiro up and guided the man to his room, tucking him in and everything.

 

If Shiro had been less sleepy, there might have been an interrogation. Keith thanked every deity there was that he was able to push that off a little longer.

 

He also cursed them later that morning when every single one of his friends barged into his room while he was still asleep, demanding answers. Even _Coran_ was part of this. Keith hadn’t even realized Coran was in town.

 

The concern was nice, he supposed. It meant they cared. That was a feeling he could never get enough of in his life.

 

From there the rest of the day was a whirlwind of homework and working with Rolo and then more homework, until he finally finished at nine at night. He slipped his business homework into his backpack and lifted his arms above his head, stretching them as far as they could go.

 

He looked at the picture on his desk as he brought his arms down, a small smile on his face. In the picture he looked so young and happy, it was practically a different person. It didn’t feel like him sitting on his dad’s shoulders at all.

 

His gaze travelled over to the collage of pictures. He wasn’t actually in that many of them, but the ones that did include him were the same way, a vision of a different person. Everyone probably felt that way looking back on old photos though. The difference was they could take new ones with their current selves. He didn’t have that luxury.

 

He tapped a finger on the desk. He might not be able to take a picture, but photography wasn’t the only way to capture an image. He pulled his sketchbook back out and opened to a fresh page.

 

It took him a week to finish it, working around his classes and homework. No one was allowed to look at it either, which was driving everyone mad, especially when he pulled out he transferred it to a canvas and pulled out his paints. They kept trying to sneak into his room and peek at it, or they made up some kind of excuse to come talk to him while he was working on it.

 

It was a relief to everyone when he finished it the next weekend.

 

Once it was dry, he lifted it off the desk easel and carried it out to the living room where everyone was playing Just Dance.

 

“I, um, finished that project, if you guys still wanted to see,” Keith said. He held the image towards himself, still nervous about showing everyone. It was one of the most personal projects he’d ever done.

 

The game was paused immediately.

 

“Heck yes! Show us!” Lance said, leaning forward on the couch and tapping fists on his knees. “Show us, show us, show us!”

 

Pidge, Hunk, and Matt picked up the chant as well.

 

Keith laughed and turned the painting around, silencing everyone immediately. Waiting for their responses coiled like a spring being pushed down.

 

“Oh, Keith,” Allura said. “It’s beautiful.”

 

The painting was of him standing on the edge of a canyon in the desert at night, stars littering the sky above him. Standing on either side, fainter and almost see through, were his parents, hands on his shoulders. Hidden in the light of the stars were the words ‘I miss you.’

 

Lance come closer and narrowed his eyes at it. “I don’t even understand how you made them see through, it’s a _painting_.”

 

Keith laughed, the tension uncoiling. “Secret of the trade.”

 

“No fair,” Lance whined.

 

Keith laughed again. His next project, he’d already decided, was going to feature all of his friends. He didn’t know where and how and what they’d be doing in the painting, but they were going to be there.

 

“Why a desert though?” Matt asked.

 

“I don’t know, it just seemed right,” Keith said. He could come up with a dozen symbolic meanings for it, and some of them may even feel true. Mostly the desert provided an uncluttered background, so the focus could stay on the three figures in the foreground. The core of the painting was that feeling of his parents still being there, even if he couldn’t see them.

 

Shiro pulled out his phone. “I’m going to take a picture and send it to Mom and Dad, that okay?”

 

Keith nodded. “Send it to me, too.”

 

“Send it to all of us, man,” Matt said. “I want to brag about him when he’s famous and say ‘I knew him when.’”

 

Keith doubted he’d ever be famous, especially with a career as a tattoo artist. And if he did, he would never use this piece in a gallery or anything. He did this one for himself.

 

He looked down at it again. If he stared at it long enough, he could almost feel those ghostly hands on his shoulders.

 

He would never want to repeat his accident in the fall, would never even wish it on his worst enemies. But it had triggered the path he needed to take to get to where he was now, and where he was included his parents in as much a role as they could have. He wouldn’t change that for anything.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that! This has been quite a ride, and thank you to everyone who commented! I really appreciate all of them! 
> 
> Hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have!


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